I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J 

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WOMEN'S WORK FOR JESUS. 






BY 



MES. ANNIE WITTENMYER. 



Rise tip, ye women that are at ease ; hear my yoke, ye careless 
daughters." — Isaiah xxxii. 9. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 

No. 1018 ARCH STREET, 

PHILADELPHIA, PA; 



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5* 

6 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

MRS. ANNIE WITTENMYER, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



The Library 
of Congress 

WASHINGTON 



TO THE 

EARNEST, WORKING, CHRISTIAN WOMEN 

OP ALL DENOMINATIONS, 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



-*♦*- 



THIS book is published to meet a felt 
want in the Church, and is addressed 
especially to Christian Women. 

Much has been said and written, of late, on 
the home duties of women, their social dis- 
abilities, and their claims to political preferment, 
but very little in regard to Women's Work in 
the Church. 

The writer of these simple pages has left the 
home duties of women, so long and ably dis- 
cussed, on the one hand, and the question of 
their social and political privileges on the other, 
and entered the broad, uncultivated field lying 
between the two. 

More than two-thirds of the members of the 
Church are women ; and it is time the Church 
would ask herself the question : What can they 

do for Christ and humanity? And it seems 

5 



b PREFACE. 

eminently proper that women should discuss 
and answer this question, and suggest plans 
for their own employment. 

Chapter III., written for this book by Rev. 
I. W. Wiley, D.D., Editor of the "Ladies' 
Repository," is an able and well-written arti- 
cle, and will be read with great interest and 
profit. 

Aside from this, no literary merit is claimed 
for the book. Plain, practical questions are 
dealt with, in a plain, matter of fact way ; not 
so much to please the fancy, as to stir the heart. 

Some of the facts may be ugly — some of the 

truths unwelcome; but the writer has not felt 

at liberty to lower the Christian standard, or 

temper her words to please worldly professors 

of religion. And although not indifferent to 

criticism, she will have, in the event of success 

or failure, the glorious consciousness that " she 

hath done what she could." 

The Author. 
Philadelphia, 

August 30th, 1871. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER !. 

A View of the Home Field. 

The Masses do not attend Church 14 

Children out of the Sabbath School 15 

The Tide of Emigration 17 

Horrible Condition of Thousands 21 

Plague Spots worse than Sodom 22 

The Children of the degraded Poor 24 

Struggle for Life and for Bread 25 

God's fiery Judgment 28 

Vile Literature 29 

The Stage 31 

Play Houses of a low Order 33 

The Church must lift a Standard 34 

7 



8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER II. 

How can the Masses be reached and evan- 
gelized. 

Ministers cannot do all the Work 37 

Men do not perform this Service. 38 

Two-thirds of the Church, Women 41 

A Christian Woman and a Drunkard 43 

Women mould Society 47 

The Mourner comforted 49 

A talented Minister 50 

ANvicked Woman visited 51 

Religion is Love 54 

Plans of Work 55 

There must be Organization 58 

Dr. Fowler on Woman's Work 60 

Visiting from House to House 62 

A Demand for the whole Force 65 

CHAPTER III. 

Adaptation of Woman to Home Missionary 

Work. 
By Rev. I. W. Wiley, D.D., Editor of the "Ladies 

Repository." 66 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 9 



-» 



CHAPTER IV. 
A Plea for Christian Women's Work. 

A Lesson for the Church 92 

Sisters of Charity 93 

Thousands of Children proselyted 94 

Protestant Women in the War 95 

A Rain of Fire and Lead 97 

Worldliness in the Church 100 

Work of the Women of the World 101 

Theatres managed by Women 102 

Circuses managed by Women 103 

Woman's Power and Weapons 107 

Women at the Cross. 110 

Bishop Thomson's Views 112 

CHAPTER V. 

The Follies and Excuses of unfaithful 
Professors of Religion, discussed. 

A Woman's first Duty is at Home 115 

Dress and ornamental Work 118 

15,000 Stitches on a Flounce 120 

Martyrs to Fashion 124 



10 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

A young Girl sacrificed 125 

Diamonds to build a Church. 127 

Baptism of a fashionable Lady 128 

Elaborate Head-gear 129 

Moral Perjury 131 

Dress of Children 132 

Doors closed against poor Children 133 

Dr. J. W. Alexander's Views 136 

Ear-Rings 137 

Women of uncircumcized Ears 140 

Lady Washington and her Visitors 144 

Washington's Mother 148 

Franklin's Daughter 149 

An Inventory of Woman's Wants 151 

CHAPTER VI. 
Time anx> Ability for Christ's Work. 

The sick Soldier 155 

Jesus the Sinner's Friend 157 

Healed Soul and Body 159 

Salvation through a Wall 162 

Susannah Wesley 164 

Peculiarly constituted 165 

Dumb as the Dead 166 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 11 

The unfaithful Mother 167 

An idler for thirty Years 169 

The Guide-Board 172 

The heavenly Ladder 174 

The constraining Love of Christ 175 

CHAPTER VII. 

Cross-bearing and Christian Privilege. 

The true Cross 178 

Sham Crosses 179 

The young Disciple 180 

The Infidel Parents 181 

The abundant Harvest 184 

Barbary Heck 185 

"There may be a Spark left." 188 

The Treasures we are to lay up 189 

A young Girl redeemed 190 

A Welcome at Heaven's Gate 191 

After the Battle 193 

The 'wounded Soldier 194 

" I have the Comforter." 195 

The Divine Stamp on Clay 198 

A priceless Heritage 199 

Are we^not Daughters of a King ? 200 



12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Tract Distribution — Women's Work in 
Heathen Lands — Drunkenness among 
Women. 

Personal Effort with Tracts 202 

The Cause brought into Contempt 204 

Women's Work in Heathen Lands 205 

Degradation of Heathen Women 206 

The Women of ancient Britain 207 

A Welcome to Christian Women 209 

Consecration of Money 210 

Drunkenness among Women 211 

Places of Resort where Women drink 212 

Patent Medicines 214 

Duty of Christian Women 216 

60,000 Drunkards on a dead March 217 

Save the Women and Children 218 

Go forth to labor 219 

CHAPTER IX. 

Thoughts and Suggestions for Chris- 
tian Workers 221 



WOMEN'S WORK FOR JESUS. 

CHAPTER I. 

A VIEW OF THE HOME FIELD. 

TTTE look over this broad land with 
* * its teeming millions, to find that 
the religious demands of our populous 
and rapidly growing country are not 
being met; that the activities of the 
Church are' not keeping pace with the 
activities of the world ; and that the Gos- 
pel of Christ is not being preached to 
the masses. 

Nor do we mean by the masses the 
degraded and criminal, the drunken and 
licentious, who live in garrets and cellars, 

and crowd the lanes of our populous cities. 
2 13 



14 THE MASSES DO NOT ATTEND CHURCH. 

The non-church going multitudes re- 
present all classes, from the lordly mil- 
lionaire who lives in a palace and fares 
sumptuously every day, to the humble 
rag-picker who gathers a scanty living 
from the gutter. 

From careful calculations, based upon 
facts and statistics from every quarter, we 
are forced to conclude, taking in the whole 
extent of our country, that one-half of 
our people absent themselves from the house 
of God. And of those who do attend 
public worship, thousands sustain false 
and idolatrous systems of religion, so that 
a still larger proportion are without 
Christian teaching. 

It has been estimated that " not more 
than one-sixth of the people of the United 
States ordinarily attend public Christian 
worship!' 

And the American Sunday School 



CHILDREN OUT OF SABBATH SCHOOL. 15 

Union for 1865, — and there has been very 
little change since, — report that, " In no 
one of our Eastern States are one-half of 
the children in the Sunday schools, and in 
some of our Western States three-fourths 
of the children and youth are not only 
ungathered into the Sabbath school, but 
large numbers are beyond the reach of 
any established church." 

A deep, undefined feeling of scepticism 
prevails, which, added to the consciousness 
of being uncared for, breeds discontent 
and hatred toward the Church. For 
these multitudes are living all around us, 
many of them within sight of our chur- 
ches ; but our Sabbath bells come to them 
with no voice of invitation ; their hearts 
have not been touched ; their sympathies 
have not been stirred ; the hand of Chris- 
tian love has not been reached out to 
them ; and many of them are saying, and 



16 LEANING AGAINST A CHURCH. 

saying bitterly " There are none who care 
for my soul" 

They have a sense of being uncared 
for, neglected, not wanted by the Church. 

Not long ago, I saw a drunkard stag- 
ger along the street till he came to a 
church. He stopped and leaned against 
it till I approached. I found him intel- 
ligent and penitent, and full of good de- 
sires, but too weak to cope with the ad- 
versary alone. 

He lived next door to the church — 
under the very shadow of the stately 
temple — but not one of the 300 members 
who statedly worshipped there had visited 
him, or expressed any interest in his sal- 
vation, although with his little family 
he had lived there for months. 

Thus neglected, thousands abandon 
themselves to evil courses, and live unre- 
strained lives of sin. 



THE TIDE OF EMIGRATION. 17 

And infidelity, and scepticism, and 
Sabbath desecration, and revelry, and 
drunkenness, and debauchery prevail on 
every hand. 

Men set their traps openly for the feet 
of the innocent, and barter in human 
flesh, and make themselves drunk on 
the blood of souls. 

And this irreligious element ^ in our 
midst is being largely augmented by ac- 
cessions from abroad. 

A tide of emigration has set in upon 
us, from all lands, bringing to our shores 
thousands of pagans, infidels and false 
religionists. 

Our great city centres, which are the 
chief receptacle of this influx, are al- 
ready feeling the corrupting, demoraliz- 
ing influence of these anti-christian ele- 
ments ; while, on our Western borders, 
thousands of pagans are gathering, and 



18 MORAL CONTEST BEFORE US. 

building their altars and setting up their 
idols in our very midst. 

When political economists and states- 
men, looking out upon these storm-clouds, 
openly express their fears and tremble 
for the safety of their country, it is time 
for the Church to arouse herself, put 
on her strength, and go forth to her 
God-given mission. 

A great moral contest is before us. The 
doctrines of Christ are to be confronted 
by the teachings of Confucius; our 
simple forms of worship that we love so 
well, by the ritualistic mummeries of Ro- 
manism ; our spiritual religion, by mate- 
rialism and German rationalism; our 
churches, by play-houses, and beer-gar- 
dens and pagodas. 



"We are living, we are dwelling, 
In a grand and awful time, 
In an age, on ages telling— 
To be living is sublime. " 



WE MUST CONQUER, OR BE CONQUERED. 19 

Sublime, if we rise to the glorious pos- 
sibilities before us. 

This land is the great missionary field 
of the whole world. 

The Lord is sending his benighted 
children from all lands, to our very 
doors, to be taught of us the lessons of 
saving truth. 

The people of every kindred, nation 
and tongue, under the skies, are coming 
to be one with us, in all things. 

And we are to lift them up to our 
Christian civilization, or they are to drag 
us down towards their barbarisms. 

There is power enough in Christianity 
to hold us, and keep us steadily moving 
forward on the ascending plain of pro- 
gress we now occupy ; and power enough 
to lift all these coming millions to our 
level, and lift us all to a higher plain of 
Christian civilization. 



20 GLORIOUS POSSIBILITIES. 

But this power must be applied. These 
masses must be brought in contact with 
the refining, elevating influences of the 
Gospel. 

A glorious opportunity is before the 
Church. This land may be made the 
joy of the whole earth — the radiating 
centre of Gospel light and influence — a 
heavenly gateway for all nations. 

And upon the fidelity of the Christian 
Church, in this last quarter of the nine- 
teenth century, will in a large measure 
depend the future welfare of our own 
land, and the early enlightenment and 
Christianization of the world. 

If a general view of the Home Field 
reveals a mission of such extent and 
magnitude, what shall we say, when we 
carefully look over the details of the 
work to be accomplished ? 

In addition to the wide-spread preva- 



HORRIBLE CONDITION OF THOUSANDS. 21 

lence of immorality and scepticism, we 
will find schools of rank infidelity ; bla- 
tant teachers of false doctrines ; political 
combinations for personal aggrandize- 
ment, endangering public peace and 
safety ; whiskey rings ; gambling hells ; 
nests of vice that breed contagion of the 
most virulent character; social cancers 
that feed on the vitals of our moral life ; 
and sinks of iniquity where the degraded 
and wrecked and ruined of every class 
gravitate and fester and rot, till the 
moral atmosphere around us is reeking 
with social miasma. 

The moral condition of thousands in 
our large cities is simply horrible. 

None but those who have made them- 
selves familiar with these haunts of vice 
and poverty, can form a conception of 
the degradation and wretchedness of the 
abandoned classes. 



22 PLAGUE SPOTS WORSE THAN SODOM. 

In the lower wards of New York, 
where nearly a quarter of a million of 
souls find a home, the moral destitution' 
is almost incredible. 

Huddled together in garrets and cel- 
lars, or congregated by hundreds in 
tenement buildings, which are little else 
than pest-houses, their spiritual and phy- 
sical condition is truly appalling. 

They seem crowded down, and " hed- 
ged in" to lives of sin and shame. 

And New York, the gateway of the 
nation, the receiving depot for a large 
part of the migrating population of the 
world, is only a very little worse than 
the other large cities of our land. 

Whole streets, and in some cases wards, 
are abandoned to the degraded and cri- 
minal classes, and become plague spots 
worse than Sodom, where sin and crime 
run riot. 



THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST CAN PURIFY. 23 

Multitudes crowded into these loath- 
some localities, morally diseased, and 
spreading disease, with the malignity of 
demons, crowd each other down the 
steeps of death. 

No power of legislation, no system of 
benevolence can reach their desperate 
case. 

Nothing but Christianity can go down 
to the depths of their degradation, and 
lift them up, and undo their heavy bur- 
dens, and break their galling chains, and 
lead them forth to lives of purity and 
peace. 

There is power in the Gospel to purify 
and sweeten all this putrid mass of hu- 
manity. 

The followers of Christ are the salt of 
the earth, and if the salt has not lost its 
savor, these perishing millions for whom 
he died may be reached and saved. 



24 THE CHILDREN OF DEGRADED POOR. 

But there is an important class, in 
these homes of sin and wretchedness, 
demanding special attention : 

THE CHILDREN OF THE DEGRADED POOR. 

There are thousands of children in 
t*iese training schools of vice, who know 
xio other teaching, and over whose suffer- 
ing condition angels might well weep. 

In their innocence and helplessness 
they find themselves, without any choice 
of their own, in narrow, filthy quarters ; 
nursed by drunken mothers ; abused and 
cursed by brutal, besotted fathers ; neg- 
lected and forsaken ; struggling with the 
first gasp of life for life itself ; breathing 
a polluted atmosphere; and overcome in 
their first contests with evil. 

Children, who have a life without a 
childhood; a soul without a window to 
let in the light of heaven; who are driven 



STRUGGLE FOR LIFE AND BREAD. 25 

on through the blackness of despair, by 
the scorpions, hunger, want, and cold, to 
madness and to crime. 

This is no fancy sketch — no overdrawn 
picture. 

Thousands are in the midst of this 
fearful struggle. 

Few have the strength to pass safely 
through the perils of such a childhood ; 
and it is well. For every generous im- 
pulse is trampled down, every aspiration 
crushed out, and all the powers of their 
being are brought into one long, fierce, 
agonizing struggle for life and for bread. 

The abodes of sin and shame are red 
with the blood of murdered innocents. 

Would God I could portray the fearful 
scenes of suffering I have witnessed. 
Scenes of agony too deep for human 
words, the remembrance of which brings 
tears as I write. 

3 



26 THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 

My sisters, who are wasting their 
sympathies on novels, and shedding 
their ready tears over imaginary heroes, 
would do well to look about them for 
the real heroes and martyrs writhing 
under the foot of humanity near their 
own doors. 

This important class is beyond the 
ordinary range of Church and Sabbath 
school efforts, and can only be reached 
by an earnest outgoing spirit of Chris- 
tianity. 

In their helplessness and wretched- 
ness they have a right to look to the 
Church for sympathy and help. The 
Gospel of Christ demands their salvation, 
by every consideration that can move to 
Christian effort. 

They are more accessible and teach- 
able than older sinners; their young 
hearts yearn for sympathy and love, 



DEMAND UPON THE WEALTHY. 27 

and there is much to inspire hope in 
their behalf. 

The strong arm of the Church should 
be reached out to them ; she should be- 
come the nursing mother of these stray- 
ing lambs of the flock, and shelter them 
in her fold of love. 

Thousands might be saved, who if 
left to drift on in the corrupt channels 
in which they find themselves, will live 
and die in the slums of vice. 

The Protestant Church in the past 
has left this great work for the most 
part to the Church of Rome, or to the 
enterprise and generosity of a few indi- 
viduals. 

Every denomination should have its 
homes and schools for poor neglected 
children. 

And many of the wealthy men and 
women of the Church have reason to 



28 god's fiery judgments. 

blush with shame, that they have given 
so much to fine churches, and fine 
houses, and extravagant living, and so 
little to save these helpless, perishing 
ones. 

God is writing his fiery judgments in 
many a professedly Christian household, 
who have thus squandered the Lord's 
substance. The sword has entered their 
own flesh, and their sons and their 
daughters are treading the ways of death. 

But we turn from these sickening 
scenes to the literature of the country. 

It has been said, that " of the making 
of books there is no end," but none save 
those who have carefully investigated 
the matter can form anything like a 
just estimate of the vast amount of 
trashy, sensational reading in circulation 
in our midst. 



YILE LITERATURE. 



2o 



The whole country is flooded with 
overdrawn stories of love, adventures 
robbery and murder. 

Public taste largely demands this style, 
and sensational writers find readiest- 
market for their wares. 

But this is not all. A surprisingly 
large contraband trade is being carried 
on in obscene books and papers. 

The printing presses of the land that 
can be prostituted to this work find 
abundant employment, and are driven 
night and day. 

And agents are employed in almost 
every city and town, to spy out young 
men and young women who may be 
approached, and into whose hands these 
vile things may be thrust. 

When this is not ventured, the mail 
is freely used, so that no place is secure. 

Like the frogs of Egypt, these vile cor- 



30 WHY YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN FALL. 

rupting books and papers find their way 
into the very bed-chambers of the 
pure. 

The Dead-Letter Office, which receives 
but a tithe of these streams of moral 
corruption, has become a cesspool for 
much, both written and printed, that is 
indecent and devilish. 

We often wonder that so many young 
men and women go out from respectable 
homes to live lives of sin and shame. 
But if we could lift the veil we would 
find that fictitious and corrupt literature 
had been doing their work for years. 

Nothing but Christianity can purify 
these streams of death, and sweeten these 
bitter fountains. 

The sickly, diluted, sentimental stories 
that crowd our Sabbath school libraries 
will not cure this evil. 

The Church has a great work before 



THE STAGE. 61 

her in this direction, and the importance 
of furnishing a pure, cheap, attractive 
literature to the masses cannot be over- 
estimated. 

Nor may we look with indifference 
upon the public amusements of the age. 

The stage is one of the most formidable 
powers that antagonize the Christian 
Church. 

The more formidable, because it as- 
sumes an air of respectability and claims 
to be a teacher of public morals. 

Thus disguised, it is making fearful 
inroads upon the Church and Sabbath 
school, by fostering and disseminating 
pride, worldliness, and the love of dress 
and display. 

Great efforts have been put forth from 
time to time to check the downward 
tendencies of the stage, and free it from 
the well-grounded objections that are 



32 THE LOWEST PLAYS PATRONIZED. 

constantly being urged against it. But 
if we may credit those who have labored 
most faithfully to effect reforms, the 
plays were never so low, and the tenden- 
cies are still downward. 

The two lowest plays that have ever 
found place on the American stage have 
been best patronized. 

As money making, and not moral im- 
provement, is the main object of those 
who control the amusements of the age, 
it is to their interest to introduce " plays 
that will draw," and to cry out " great 
is Diana of the Ephesians" when any 
one speaks bold and truthful words 
against this evil. 

Multitudes from all classes gather 
nightly into these play-houses of the 
land. 

Pride, joy, grief, anger, love, hatred, 
revenge, jealousy, robbery, murder, and 



PLAY-HOUSES OF A VERY LOW ORDER. 33 

all the passions of the unregenerated 
heart, are personified by living actors. 

" Like begets like." The plays shape 
the character ; false notions of life obtain ; 
the passions are inflamed ; a love for ad- 
venture and fictitious reading is encour- 
aged, and thousands go back to the hard 
every-day work of life dissatisfied and 
unfit for its stern duties. 

But places of resort of a very low order 
abound, where the plays and costumes 
are vulgar and indecent, and men smoke 
and drink during the nightly perfor- 
mances ; and the fumes of whiskey and 
tobacco fill all the place. 

Would a mother send her child to a 
drinking saloon, or a brothel, to learn 
lessons of temperance and virtue ? Cer- 
tainly not. 

Nor may we send our children to wit- 
ness the exhibitions of tempers and pas- 



34 THE CHURCH MUST LIFT A STANDARD. 

sions that we would not have them fol- 
low in their every-day life. 

If the Church would maintain her 
purity and spirituality, she must lift up 
a standard against the enemy, no matter 
in what garb, or with what pretensions 
he comes. 

Better, a thousand times, let the 
worldly professor go out, than to bring 
the theatre, or the spirit of the stage, 
into the Church, or in any way have 
fellowship with the unfruitful works of 
darkness. 

The Church must bring her whole 
force into the conflict, and consecrate 
her abundant means to the Master's 
work, if she would successfully meet and 
overcome the gigantic evils that confront 
her. 

The world is employing her entire 
force, and pouring out her wealth like 



THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT. 35 

water. There must be equal earnestness 
and zeal on the part of the Church. 

" The harvest truly is great, but the 
laborers are few ; pray ye therefore the 
Lord of the harvest, that he would send 
forth laborers into his vineyard" 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW CAN THE MASSES BE REACHED AND 
EVANGELIZED. 

ri iHE great moral contest of the pres- 
-*- ent age must be fought in the 
homes of the people. 

The masses do not come to the Church 
— the Church must go to them — the 
Gospel must be carried to their houses. 

WHO CAN DO THIS WORK? 

We have been depending mainly upon 
the pulpit. 

Can ministers of the Gospel reach these 
multitudes by pulpit or personal efforts ? 

I believe that ministers can, and are 

doing a great work ; that they are doing 
36 



MINISTERS CANNOT DO ALL THE WORK. 37 

their work, but that they cannot, and it 
never was designed, that they should do 
all. 

They can only hope to reach those 
who come to the Church, or who are 
brought within the circle of their per- 
sonal influence. 

The great out-lying masses are beyond 
their reach. 

The limits of time and human strength 
forbid that they should go out to these 
multitudes, and preach the Gospel to 
them individually and separately in their 
respective places of abode. 

Pulpit preparations and Sabbath and 
week-day services, and the pastoral care 
of the flock of Christ committed to them, 
must needs take all their time and strength. 

They are the leaders of the people ; it 

is for them to plan and direct, instruct 

and stimulate, and lead on the hosts of 
4 



38 LITTLE DEPENDENCE UPON MEN. 

God to victory; but there will be no great 
victory if they are left to fight the battle 
alone. 

We may not, therefore, expect them 
unaided to accomplish this great and im- 
portant work. 

Nor may we depend entirely, or chiefly 
on the men of the Church. 

I believe that they might do more than 
they are doing. That they might carry 
their religion into the daily business of 
life — into their stores, and shops, and 
offices, and make its living power felt in 
all the channels of trade; that they 
might talk more about Jesus, and less 
about some other things, and their own 
hearts would be the richer and the world 
the better for the effort 

But this work must be done in the 
homes of the people, and during the 
hours of the day, when the men of the 



HIRED MISSIONARIES, 39 

Church are engaged in business — busi- 
ness that they may not leave. 

Our theories may be perfect, but the 
great fact stands out before us — The men 
of the Church have not in the past, and 
are not now doing any large part of this 
work, and we may not rely upon them 
entirely for its accomplishment in the 
future. 

Great reliance has of late been placed 
on hired missionaries. 

Hundreds have been employed, and 
thousands of dollars have been expended. 
But these workers in the past have been 
mostly men, and they have gone into 
the homes of the people, to find the men 
absent at their work, and the women and 
the children alone. 

Under these circumstances, frequent 
visits have not been deemed advisable, 
and they have gone on to other localities 



40 PERSONAL EFFORT. 

equally destitute, so that the moral 
force of their visits has in large part 
been lost, and they have done little more 
than explore the field and reveal its utter 
destitution. 

In mission churches and market-places, 
where they have been able to gather the 
people together and teach them publicly, 
the fruits of their labor have been more 
abundant and manifest. But only a few 
of the perishing multitudes, who throng 
the ways of death, can be reached in this 
way. 

Something more than preaching is 
needed to meet the demands of the 
times. 

A thorough system of personal religious 
effort in the homes of the people must be 
secured and maintained, to reach the 
masses. 

To accomplish this work under a paid 



TWO-THIRDS OF THE CHURCH WOMEN. 41 

system, would require thousands of work- 
ers, and millions of dollars. A force and 
an amount the Church is not likely soor 
to have at her command. 

All the instrumentalities we have con- 
sidered have an important place and part 
in the great mission before vis, and may 
not be dispensed with, or in the least de- 
preciated. 

But I would introduce a new agency, 
with special claims and qualifications for 
this particular department of the Master's 
work, viz. : 

The systematic, voluntary labors of 
Christian Women, under the direction of 
the regular pastorate. 

More than two-thirds of the entire 
membership of the Church are women. 

That they have a place and a work 
in the Church is not doubted , and that 
they possess qualifications of a pecu- 



42 SYMPATHY AND LOVE OF WOMEN. 

liarly valuable character for religious 
effort in the homes of the people, is 
freely admitted; but the Church has 
given them no specific work. 

It seems strange, that in the stir end 
effort of society for its own renovation, 
and the movements of the Church for 
the evangelization of the masses, that 
they should have been so long over- 
looked and unemployed. 

The world needs just such a present- 
ment of religion as the women of the 
Church can make. 

Not teaching nor argument, but the 
presence of a simple, positive faith ; words 
of Christian testimony and experience; 
a spirit of sympathy and love. 

Before such a presence, doubt and 
scepticism would give way, passion and 
prejudice yield, and human hearts soften 
to receive the truth of Christ. 



CHRISTIAN LADY, AND THE DRUNKARD. 43 

Multitudes are perishing all around 
our costliest churches for lack of just 
such words of sympathy and love as the 
women of the Church can and ought to 
speak. 

Men are not reached through their 
heads, but through their hearts, and 
women know the most direct channels to 
the human heart; and their ready tact 
prepares them to make the most of un- 
expected opportunities to work for the 
Master. 

A few months ago, a Christian lady 
passing down one of the streets of Cam- 
den, N. J., met a drunken man. 

The Spirit suggested, "You might 
speak to that man." But the cross was 
heavy and the duty unusual, and she al- 
lowed him to pass without a word. 

Her heart condemned her, and she re- 
membered that God was greater than her 



44 I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU. 

heart, and he would condemn her also ; 
and she resolved, that if ever she should 
have such another opportunity she would 
speak. 

She had not walked one square till 
she met a young man, and he was in- 
toxicated. 

As he came staggering toward her, 
she said, " Young man, I want to speak 
with you." 

He stopped and straightened himself 
up before her. 

" Oh, I am so sorry to see that you 
have been drinking," she continued. 

But he answered, "I don't drink 
much." 

Men never do drink much till they 
get down into the gutter, and can't get 
up again. 

"I am sorry you drink at all, can't 
you give this up?" And before the 



A DRUNKARD SAVED. 45 

interview closed, it was arranged that 
she should visit him the next afternoon 
at his own house. 

She found him awaiting her coming 
the next day, and he was sober now, and 
an intelligent listener. 

Before the visit was over he had 
promised to abstain from drink, and to 
go with her that very evening to the 
church. 

At the appointed hour he accompanied 
her to the church, and before the services 
had closed he was kneeling at the 
altar, and she was kneeling beside him 
pointing him to the Saviour of sinners. 

Shortly afterwards he was brought to 
the knowledge of the truth in Christ, 
and his name was registered on the 
church book. 

The Lord has wonderfully qualified 
women to go into the homes of the 



46 CHRISTIAN WOMEN MAY GO ANYWHERE. 

people, and sit down by the fireside, or 
in the family group, and talk of Jesus, 
and duty and heaven. 

They can go without restraint, ancJ 
they will be received with confidence. 

Their ready tact and generous sympa- 
thies fit them to go among all classes. 

The palaces of the rich, and the hovels 
of the poor, are alike open to them, and 
they will receive a gracious hearing any- 
where. 

They too will find the men absent, 
and the women and the children alone. 
But instead of this being an embar- 
rassment, it will be a gracious oppor- 
tunity. 

The home is their sphere ; they know 
the details of its work, and understand 
its interests as men cannot. 

The labors and trials of the wife and 
mother are understood and appreciated 



WOMEN MOULD SOCIETY. 47 

by them, and they can give the necessary 
sympathy and counsel. 

In many homes there are other lessons 
to be taught, lessons that lie at the very 
foundation of home comfort, and involve 
the first principles of Christian instruc- 
tion, as a ground-work for decent living, 
and Christian faith. 

The industrial pursuits of the domestic 
circle, the moral and physical training 
of children, and the duties and privileges 
of religious home life, are lessons greatly 
needed in many of the homes of this 
land. 

Women mould society in its very be- 
ginnings. The family is much as the 
mother makes it. 

Christian women have power in their 
own homes, and will be welcomed to 
other homes, where men would not be 
received. 



48 CONQUERING POWER OF LOVE. 

They may teach the needed lessons 
where men could not obtain a hearing. 

They may go down to the lowest dens 
of vice and infamy that pollute the earth, 
and whisper words of love and hope to 
the fallen and broken-hearted ones, and 
win them back to truth and purity. 

It is not " by enticing words of man's 
wisdom " that these wandering ones are 
to be brought back to God, but by Chris- 
tian love ; such Jove as moved Jesus when 
he went about doing good. 

Such a manifestation of Christian love 
is needed in many a darkened home, 
where sin and sorrow, where disappoint- 
ment and death, have brought down 
human pride, and lacerated human hearts 
and left them bleeding and sore. 

" The world has cheated me with its 
empty show, and I have wandered far 
away from my Father's house, and have 



THE MOURNER COMFORTED. 49 

been living on husks/' said a beautiful 
lady of wealth to a Christian woman, 
who although a stranger, took the 
trouble to visit her in her affliction, 
just after the funeral of her husband. 

In her sore need they bowed together 
in prayer, and she sought and obtained 
of God peace and comfort. 

This Divine love is needed by scores 
and hundreds of young men and young 
women, who have left their mothers' 
graves and their mothers' counsels far 
behind them, and are wandering on in 
the paths of sin and folly. 

It is needed in prisons and alms- 
houses ; in the city and in the country ; 
by the rich and the poor; everywhere 
by the struggling millions who find no 
rest for their souls, and are fainting and 
perishing by the way. 

And in the eyes of the world there is 



50 A TALENTED MINISTER. 

no higher manifestation of the Divine 
love than that exhibited by Christian 
women in their efforts to relieve the 
needy and rescue the fallen. 

Women are more gentle in their ap- 
proaches, and have more skill in intro- 
ducing the subject of religion than men. 

This may be illustrated by an incident 
or two. 

A zealous, talented minister of New 
Jersey, passing through a wood one day 
on horseback, chanced to meet a country- 
man with a team and loaded wagon 
Anxious for the salvation of souls, and 
unwilling that such a favorable opportu- 
nity should pass by unimproved, he rode 
up to the stranger in a dashing way, and 
exclaimed in a loud voice, " Prepare to 
meet thy God ! " 

The poor countryman, surprised and 
terrified, began to plead for his life. 



A WICKED WOMAN YISITED. 51 

"For God's sake don't kill me," he 
cried. " I've not a cent of money." 

The minister was equally surprised to 
find that he had been mistaken for a 
" highway-man." 

It is needless to add that the result 
was far from being satisfactory. 

Not long since, during a revival sea- 
son in one of the churches of P , the 

irreligious in the parish, and especially 
the non-church going, were visited and 
invited to the special services. 

In a division of the labor, it was ar- 
ranged that two of the men of the church 
should call upon a notoriously wicked 
woman, who kept a drinking saloon not 
far from the church, and talk with her 
on the subject of religion. 

They confronted her in her saloon, 
surrounded by her wicked companions, 
and opening up the subject at once, they 



52 TAMED BY KINDNESS. 

told her of her wickedness, her danger, 
her duty, and warned her " to flee the 
wrath to come," and offered to pray with 
and for her. 

But her eyes blazed with anger. She 
denounced them as hypocrites, wanted 
none of their prayers, ordered them out 
of her house, and cursed and railed, till 
they were glad to get out of the hearing 
of her voice, and the hooting and laugh- 
ing of her companions. 

A few days afterwards, two of the 
women of the church determined to visit 
her, and try their skill in winning her 
to Christ. 

After making several calls in the im- 
mediate neighborhood, they went to the 
door of her residence, which adjoined the 
saloon. 

The woman met them at the door 
with a look of surprise, but Mrs. C 



A. PRAYER FOR MERCY. 53 

put her at her ease at once, by saying 
pleasantly : 

" We are visiting in this neighborhood, 
and have taken the liberty to call and 
get acquainted." 

At this her countenance changed, and 
seemingly well pleased, she conducted 
them into her best room, and talked 
freely and cordially. 

Conversation for a time was allowed 
to drift, but after a while the subject of 
religion was introduced, when of her 
own accord she confessed that she was a 
great sinner, and wretchedly unhappy. 

She had been a Sunday school scholar 
in her girlhood, and she wept bitterly as 
she spoke of those happy, innocent days. 

At her own request they all knelt 
down together in prayer, and in broken 
accents she cried, "God be merciful to 
me a sinner." 



54 RELIGION IS LOVE. 

The power of love prevailed. Before 
they left the house, she had determined 
to change her business and her manner 
of life, and give herself to Christ and the 
Church. 

This spirit of love and tenderness of 
manner gives women a great advantage. 

The wicked do not need to be told of 
their wickedness and warned of their 
danger, so much as they need to know 
that Jesus loves them, that the Church 
cares for them, and that religion means 
heart and life, purity and love to God, 
and love to our fellow-men. 

Women have not only the heart quali- 
ties needed for religious work in the 
Home Field, but they have the time and 
ability demanded for the successful pro- 
secution of this great mission. 

Of these I will speak at length in 
another chapter. 



PLANS OF WORK. 55 

Having decided upon this much, that 
the great work of evangelization must he 
wrought out in the homes of the people, 
and mainly by the women of the Church, 
plans of work may be considered. 

PLANS OF WORK. 

As the Christian Church is the centre 
of Gospel light and power, all our plans 
must cluster around it. 

1. Each church must decide upon the 
limits of its parish, perform its own 
work, and develop and direct its own 
workers. 

I would not be understood as deprecia- 
ting union efforts among Christian de- 
nominations, but on the contrary as en- 
couraging unity of purpose and oneness 
of spirit in all things, and a union of 
force and material strength in the gene- 
ral movements of the Church. But in 



56 REV. DR. FOWLER. 

parochial work, union of effort is rather 
an embarrassment than a help. 

There may, and ought to be co-opera- 
tion and agreement, as to the division of 
the field among denominations, or churches 
of the same denomination in a given lo- 
cality, but for efficient and long-sustained 
effort, the people must be under the lead- 
ership of their own pastor. 

The Sabbath lesson and the week- 
day's work must go hand in hand. 

Eev. Dr. Fowler, in an address before 
the Reunited Presbyterian General As- 
sembly, said : 

" The time has come for considering 
evangelization indispensable to piety. It 
does as really belong to it as devotion. 

" Every man, woman and child in our 
communion should feel as much bound 
to do and give what they can for the 
conversion of the world, as to read the 



PREACHING AND WORK GO TOGETHER. 57 

scriptures and pray. And we ministers 
ought to accept the promotion of the 
work as a part of our official task. 

" We have regarded it too much as out- 
side of our sphere, and sometimes as an 
intrusion upon it 

" The time has come to assume it as our 
business, to enlist the people in evangeli- 
zation, and to lead them on in it, to look 
after its interests in our parishes, and 
urge its claims, and secure its supplies." 

We must get away from the idea that 
preaching is the only duty of ministers, 
and come to recognize them as leaders 
and pastors. 

No one has so commanding a place 
and influence, and can arouse the dor- 
mant energies, and develop and employ 
the latent powers of a church as its own 
pastor. 

2. There must be an organized working 



58 THERE MUST BE ORGANIZATION. 

force in the church, under the direction 
of the pastor. 

A place and a work for every one, and 
each individual must be made to feel a 
personal interest and responsibility. 

A writer says,. " Every church has its 
corps of working members, found in the 
Sunday school, in the prayer meeting, 
on committee of visitation, who are prompt 
to respond at the call of their pastor to 
any religious service or benevolent effort 
which he may designate. 

" They are the working bees of the hive. 
Their hearts are warm, their zeal steady, 
and their hands strong. 

" They love the work of God. It is 
their meat and drink. Were it not for 
these earnest warm-hearted Christians, 
the ice would accumulate upon the 
Church, until ere long it would become 
a frozen mass." 



S 



A FAITHFUL FEW IN EACH CHURCH. 59 

Yes, there are a faithful few in each 
church ; but their efficiency has been 
impaired, and their efforts are spasmodic 
and uncertain, for lack of organization. 

And especially has some simple practi- 
cal plan of organization been needed to 
hold the women of the church to specific 
work according to the time and ability 
they have, and to press it upon them as 
a personal responsibility, while it brings 
them all into a common compact and 
affords the stimulus of aggregated results. 

But I quote again from Rev. Dr. Fow- 
ler's address : 

" And has not the time come for organ- 
izing woman s work? It is invaluable 
now, but it is not systematic. Each does 
what her heart prompts, and her 
immediate circumstances permit. No 
scheme of service is constructed by us, 
and no special training furnished. She 



60 BR. FOWLER ON WOMAN'S WORK 

teaches, when so inclined, in Sunday and 
industrial, and other charitable schools, 
and visits the neglected, and relieves the 
needy and suffering ; but it is only as an 
incident in her life, and on her personal 
motion, and according to her convenience, 
and in such way as she may devise or dis- 
cover or learn, and without more than 
such a general preparation as she may 
happen to have or acquire. It is wonder- 
ful that with such desultory modes she 
should have accomplished so much. 
Nothing but the compassion of her na- 
ture could have been adequate to it. 
The Church is full of women sighing for 
work. They need occupation and desire 
usefulness. But they know not what to 
do. There is no employment open to 
them, except of an occasional and casual 
character, nothing to keep them steadily 
engaged, and that taxes their powers 



IN THE CHURCH. 61 

and principles and raises their ambition. 
They need a species of profession, some 
arrangement by which they shall be 
prepared for labors of love, and introduced 
into them, and made regular and per- 
sistent in them. We would not separate 
them from society, or take them from 
their homes; but those of them who 
are comparatively at leisure, might be 
gathered into societies, in which they 
shall associate for methodical work." 

When the organization of a working 
force is secured, and the limits of the 
parish decided upon, the field may be 
subdivided into smaller districts, and 
two or more members of the church ap- 
pointed to each, whose duty it shall be 
to visit from house to house, and ascer- 
tain and meet the religious needs of the 
people as far as possible. 

These visits are repeated from month 
6 



62 VISITING FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE. 

to month, and from year to year, as the 
visitors may judge will be useful and 
acceptable. 

The results of their work may be re- 
ported in a meeting held monthly for 
consultation. 

The pastor will thus be enabled to 
understand the demands of his parish, 
and will have an opportunity to give 
direction and counsel to the workers. 

The Church needs the reflex influence 
of aggressive Christian work. 

Thousands in the Church are dying, 
spiritually dying for lack of work ; and 
just such work as would keep their own 
faith alive, would save the perishing 
multitudes around them. 

But the pastors are the leaders, and 
the Church will look to them and follow 
where they lead. 

A faithful captain does not, when in 



FAITHFUL AND CONTINUED EFFORTS. 63 

an enemy's country, keep his whole force 
in camp all the while, but leads them 
forth to the conflict. 

The Church is a fort in an enemy's 
land, and we are the soldiers Christ has 
sent out to conquer the enemy and re- 
claim the country, and we are to go 
forth to the battle. 

No attempt should be made to pros- 
elyte from other denominations holding 
like precious faith in Christ, but all 
should be urged in the direction of their 
religious preferences, to consecrate their 
lives to the service and glory of God. 

The visitors should become familiar 
with the religious condition of all within 
their districts, and secure their good will 
and confidence. For this reason the dis- 
tricts should be small. 

The work should be long-continued 
and thorough. The indifferent should 



64 GO OUT QUICKLY. 

be urged to seriousness, the careless 
warned of danger ; the penitent pointed 
to Jesus; the stranger invited to the 
house of God 5 the wanderer reclaimed; 
the sick comforted; the forsaken con- 
soled ; the fallen lifted up ; the children 
brought into the Sabbath school; the 
naked clothed ; the hungry fed ; and 
whatsoever the hands find to do should 
be done with our might, with prayer 
and thanksgiving. 

The example and the results of such 
work would lead others to devote them- 
selves to Christ and his cause. 

If the leading Evangelical denomina- 
tions in the land, had an organized 
force of twenty in each of their churches, 
women who would give one afternoon in 
each week to 'personal Christian effort in 
the houses of the people, the whole field 
would soon be canvassed. 



A DEMAND FOR THE WHOLE FORCE. 65 

But there ought to be a larger force. 
The whole Church ought to be enlisted ; 
and in obedience to the command of 
Jesus, " Go out quickly into the streets 
and lanes of the city, into the highways 
and hedges, and compel them to come in" 

When the Church shall organize her 
whole force, and when pastors shall 
teach that " faith without works is dead/' 
and shall lead their people from the Sab- 
bath sanctuary out into the wilderness of 
week-day sin — out into the homes of the 
perishing multitudes, in aggressive Chris- 
tian work ; and when the women of the 
Church, as well as the men, shall be made 
to feel that there is something for them 
to do, that their faith must bring forth 
fruit, and shall go forth in the spirit of 
the Master to do the Master's work, — 
then, and not till then, will the masses be 
reached and evangelized. 



CHAPTER III. 

ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO HOME MISSION- 
ARY WORK. 



By Eev. I. W. Wiley, D.D. 



Ij 1 VERY consideration that can be 
-*-^* urged why men should be workers 
together with God in saving souls, and 
advancing his kingdom on earth, is 
equally strong and available in urging 
the same duty and privilege upon the 
women of his Church. Common parti- 
cipants in the blessings of redemption, 
equal gratitude should bind them to equal 
labors, each in their peculiar fields of 
labor and according to their peculiar ca- 
pabilities. The Gospel announces the 
66 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 67 

great principle of equality as regards re- 
ligious privilege and blessing. " There 
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
female : for ye all are one in Christ 
Jesus." John Angell James beautifully 
observes respecting this passage : " Here 
is woman's charter of all the blessings 
of salvation ; here is woman's proof of 
equal consideration in the sight of God ; 
here is woman's claim to her just rank 
in the institutes of man. Christianity 
places the wife by the side of her hus- 
band, the daughter by the side of the 
father, the sister by the side of the 
brother, at the altar of the family, in the 
meeting of the church, at the table of 
the Lord, and in the congregation of the 
sanctuary. Male and female meet to- 
gether at the Cross, and will meet in the 
realms of glory." 



68 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

With this sublime equality in privi- 
lege and destiny comes an equality of 
obligation. Not that the same labors 
shall be perfomed by the different sexes, 
but that both men and women, with 
their peculiar endowments and according 
to their opportunities, shall alike indus- 
triously and gratefully labor in the vine- 
yard of the Lord. 

May we not say also that a peculiar 

debt of gratitude, and special inspiration 
to labor for Christ, rest with woman, in 
view of the manifold characteristic bless- 
ings conferred on her by the Gospel ? 

The uniform effect of Christianity has 
been to emancipate and exalt woman. 
Not by fulsome adulation, or chivalric 
and insincere flattery, but by benign and 
practical arrangements. 

For her the Gospel has abolished poly- 
gamy, and dignified and guarded mar- 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 69 

riage; has rebuked licentiousness; has 
taught and enjoined the highest descrip- 
tion of purity — -purity in thought and 
feeling, as well as in action ; thus exalt- 
ing this highest virtue, so characteristic 
of the good woman, into the typical virtue 
of the race. 

Whatever Christian women enjoy in 
the happiness of home, in the endear- 
ments of social life, or in the respect 
which they receive, and the estimation 
in which they are held in this Christian 
age, and in Christian lands, may all be 
gratefully ascribed to the Gospel of 
Christ, which scatters blessing and joy 
wherever its hallowing and gladdening 
influence extends. If, then, any are cal- 
led to be willing and active workers for 
God, surely women are so called by the 
loudest voice which can appeal to the 



70 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

conscience of an intelligent and respon- 
sible creature. 

But our object is not so much to speak 
of duty as of capability. Indeed most 
of our duties are determined by our op- 
portunities and capabilities. That woman 
is richly endowed with qualities of per- 
son, mind, and heart to make her a 
powerful agent for good in the home, in 
the social circle in which she moves, in 
the Church even, all understand and 
admit. 

The very name of wife, mother, or sis- 
ter gives her an elevated place of power 
and influence for good. But it is of 
woman's capability of working for Christ 
outside of home, and outside of the 
Church even, that we now wish to speak. 
Has she any call to be a co-operator with 
men in carrying the Gospel to the 
people ? Has she any peculiar capabili* 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 71 

ties, especially fitting her to assist the 
minister of the Gospel and the men of 
the Church in reaching the outside mas- 
ses and bringing them to Christ ? 

We believe the Creator has endowed 
her with just the qualities that are pre- 
eminently needed in this work, and the 
absence of* which, to a great extent, in 
the practical working of plans for the 
evangelization of the masses, has been 
hitherto a source of weakness and 
failure. 

In our day more energetic work must 
be done for the masses outside of the 
Church ; the Gospel must be carried to 
them, and they must be invited to the 
Church. Their misconceptions of the 
Church, and of Christian people must be 
corrected; their prejudices must be re- 
moved ; they must be made to see and 
feel their part and interest in the Re- 



72 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

deemer's work and love ; their sense of 
being uncared for, neglected, not wanted 
by the Church, must be made to pass 
away, by the Church coming to them 
and manifesting her concern for them, 
and her profound desire to do them good. 
The Church needs this vindication. The 
world this hour has no greater want than 
the spectacle of a living, working, Chris- 
tian people, full of the spirit of the Di- 
vine Redeemer, going about doing good. 
Before such a spectacle, the prejudices 
and misapprehensions, the materialism, 
and the scepticism of the people would 
melt away, as the frosts and snows of 
winter before the heat of the vernal sun. 
This want is not met by the mere multi- 
plying of churches, whatever may be 
their character, by large donations of 
money, or by magnificent schemes of 
charity. 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 73 

It is a personal want among the peo- 
ple, and can only be met by the personal 
ministrations of Christian workers. 

This is the work to be done. We 
must see them at their homes ; we must 
take Christ with us, and show him to the 
poor, to the wretched, the sinful sons and 
daughters of men. And not to these 
only. It is not only the poor that need 
these personal ministrations, and this 
practical manifestation of the spirit and 
meaning of Christianity. 

Well-to-do mechanics and their fami- 
lies, prosperous merchants, young couples 
just commencing the career of life, un- 
christian homes into which sorrow or 
death has entered, present the same 
need ; some of them by the misconcep- 
tions and prejudices they entertain to- 
ward the Church ; some by mere habits 
of indifference and neglect, which would 



74 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

be removed by a few words of personal 
interest and Christian kindness ; some by 
the favorable opportunities which Provi- 
dence has opened in their homes for put- 
ting in a word for Christ. 

What an unworked field is here, from 
which might be gathered a glorious har- 
vest for Christ. 

But it is a field that can only be work- 
ed as Jesus himself worked it in his 
own day ; by the personal presence, the 
warm hearts, and the willing hands of 
Christ's disciples. It cannot be done by 
proxy. No amount of money can hire 
it done. Christians themselves must do 
it. Christian men cannot exempt them- 
selves by merely giving their means, and 
employing the missionary ; Christian wo- 
men cannot exonerate themselves by say- 
ing it ought and will be done by men. 

But our main point just now is to show 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 75 

that this obligation rests upon the women 
of the Church as well as upon the men. 

As in an engagement on which the 
fate of natrons depends, every element of 
strength is placed under tribute, and 
every department of the service is found 
in its place, attending to its prescribed 
duties, so it is in the spiritual conflict 
which is now in course of being waged. 
No part of the Christian host can be dis- 
pensed with ; and more especially is that 
part of it required to be at the post of 
duty which possesses qualifications of the 
most effective character. That qualifica- 
tions of a peculiarly valuable description 
are possessed by woman, and qualifica- 
tions that must have been intended to do 
important service, will plainly appear. 

Among these we notice, first, woman's 
faith. The faith of woman is quick, 
spontaneous, sincere, complete. It is 



76 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

more intuitive than that of man ; it does 
not stop to reason, it depends less on 
evidence ; it is not weakened by doubts 
or by apparent difficulties. It does not 
wait to determine how " these things can 
be/' but accepts them fully and with en- 
tire satisfaction, because the Word of God 
declares they shall be. With the heart 
woman believes unto salvation. Her 
faith in the Bible, in Christ, in Redemp- 
tion is complete, and she rests in it. But 
little disturbed by theological controversy, 
not unsettled by varying theories, not 
startled by novel discoveries, she believes 
and enters into rest. God, immortality, 
eternity, the eternal blessedness of the 
good, the awful destiny of the wicked, 
are to the Christian woman living reali- 
ties. She has unwavering faith, too, in 
the power and certain success of the Gos- 
pel. Her generous and sympathetic na- 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 77 

ture also instinctively embraces in her 
faith the possibility of the salvation of 
men and women of all classes and condi- 
tions. None are too poor, or too wicked 
to be outside of the reach of her sympa- 
thy and faith. 

It is just such a faith as this that so- 
ciety now needs to have manifested in 
its midst. Among the poor and wretch- 
ed, in the homes of the desolate and sor- 
rowful, in the society of the worldly and 
frivolous, even in the haunts of crime 
and wickedness, the appearance of godly 
women full of this simple, realizing faith, 
and breathing the tender spirit of the 
Gospel, would be almost like a new reve- 
lation of the blessed Christ to the doubt- 
ing, suffering, or world-enchanted chil- 
dren of men. It is this faith of woman 
that would give her ease, gracefulness, 
tenderness, and confidence in her ap- 



IO ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

proaches to the people. Her mission 
would be not one of mere experiment, 
trying to solve the problem of reaching 
the people in their homes by the Gospel, 
but would be one of love, and faith, and 
hope ; it would be a mission not to argue 
and convince, but to bless and convict 
by the manifestation of her own faith and 
the blessedness which it secures. 

The scepticism and the prejudice of 
the people would melt away before this 
manifestation of a genuine and real faith 
in their homes and in their presence. 

Women's quick susceptibility is an 
admirable quality in her character, adap- 
ting her to this work of personal visita- 
tion. It is this that gives her such quick 
perception of the fitness of things, enables 
her so readily, and with so much deli- 
cacy, to detect human sorrow and human 
need, and to minister to them with such 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 79 

considerate address. It is this which fits 
her for the various positions in domestic 
life, which she fills with a skill so per- 
fect, that the very secret of its success 
lies concealed in her own heart. It lies 
at the foundation of her pure and simple 
faith, making her more sensible to Divine 
impressions than man is ; it makes her 
more quick in apprehending the truth 
presented by the Word of God, and 
through the operations of the Holy 
Spirit, and usually enables her to exer- 
cise a nicer discrimination in reference 
to it, and to catch more correctly and 
fully its spiritual lessons — consequently, 
her conviction of the evil of sin and the 
misery which it entails upon men and wo- 
men are stronger than that which is usually 
possessed by man. It enables her to have 
a more vivid perception of the provisions 
made by redeeming love, and of the 



80 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

privileges flowing from it. She perceives 
the readiest mode of gaining access to the 
hearts of those whom she would benefit, 
and at the same time exercises a power 
of persuasion which frequently prevails 
where sterner qualities have proved in- 
sufficient. 

This quality of her nature would give 
her an address and skill in accomplishing 
the object of her mission, far surpassing 
the ability of man. She could find her 
way in the privacy of their homes, to 
the secret sorrows and aspirations of 
hearts that would be sealed up against 
the ruder approaches of men. She could 
enter as a welcome visitor houses that 
would be locked against the mere official 
visits of the missionary. 

Surely in so richly endowing woman's 
nature with this delicate susceptibility, 
and this intuitive power of discrimination 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 81 

and quick adaptation, God intends it to 
be employed in the furtherance of his 
kingdom among men. 

Closely allied to this susceptibility is 
woman's love and sympathy. 

In these qualities she approaches more 
nearly than man the nature of him in 
whom manhood is perfected, and conse- 
quently could more nearly imitate him, 
a large part of whose wonderful ministry 
consisted in personal ministrations to the 
sorrows and necessities of those around 
him. It was his profound and obvious 
love, and his far-reaching sympathy, so 
manifest in all his life, that drew the 
people so near to him, that made their 
homes accessible to him, that inspired the 
sinful and the sorrowful with so much 
confidence in their approaches to him. 
It was his possession of this highest type 
of human nature, manifesting even a 



82 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN" TO 

womanly susceptibility and tenderness, 
that found such sympathetic responses in 
the hearts of the women that followed 
him, and awakened in them such heroic 
and enthusiastic devotion to himself. 
One of the purest and sweetest instances, 
manifesting the intuitive and complete 
response of woman's heart, to the love and 
sympathy in the heart of Jesus, was that 
of their spontaneously bringing their 
children to him. Though to the disciples, 
made of sterner stuff, and less in unison 
with the loving nature of their Lord, this 
seemed to be a useless and annoying 
movement, to the women it seemed the 
most natural thing in the world, and was 
instantly responded to by the Redeemer 
in the exclamation, " Let them come." 

In these qualities of her nature, then, 
she is closely allied to the blessed Master. 
So natural is it for her to feel for the 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK 83 

suffering, that an unfeeling woman is a 
reproach to her sex. And in these 
elements of her nature lies her great 
strength. 

This makes her presence and kindly 
aid essential in the chamber of affliction, 
so that her place there cannot be filled 
by any substitute which wealth can pur- 
chase. 

This bids her welcome to the habita- 
tions where sorrow has burst its flood- 
gates, that she may dry, as she only of 
all human comforters can, the streaming 
tears. Where man's hard nature and 
wise but chilly counsels would but make 
grief more intense, woman's loving spirit 
and words of simple-hearted kindness 
have often assuaged its bitterness, and 
she gently wiped those tears away. 

In a recent number of a widely circu- 
lating periodical an instance of this 



84 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN" TO 

power of woman is narrated. A Chris- 
tian lady, living in one of our large cities, 
was passing a gin-palace just as the bar- 
keeper was thrusting a young man into 
the street. Perceiving him to be very 
young, but haggard and excited, she laid 
her hand upon his arm, and spoke in a 
gentle loving voice, asking what was the 
matter. He started and turned quickly 
around, became paler than before, and 
trembled from head to foot. He surveyed 
the lady for a moment, and then said with 
a sigh, " I thought it was my mother's 
voice, it sounded so strangely like it ; but 
she has been dead for many years." A 
short conversation followed, which com- 
prised a confession of sin and degrada- 
tion on his part, and some tender and 
encouraging counsel on hers, as she told 
him of God's love. By this time the 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 85 

door of her house had been reached and 
they parted. 

A few years after, a stranger called on 
this worthy woman ; at first she did not 
recognize him, but he soon made himself 
known as the person whom she had that 
evening accosted. 

From that hour he had changed his 
course ; he repented of his sins and re- 
turned to God, and from being a degraded 
profligate became a prosperous and happy 
man. 

The lady's words on becoming acquain- 
ted with the result of her simple effort 
are beautiful and suggestive. " Thank 
God! I never dreamed there was such 
power in a few kind words ; and surely 
ever after this I shall take more pains to 
speak them to all the sad and suffering 
ones I meet in the walks of life." And 
will any Christian woman say, " I will 



86 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 



not soothe the sorrows of the all but 
broken hearted ; I will not use for the 
benefit of my stricken sister, or my bow- 
ed down brother, that loving and sym- 
pathizing nature with which God has 
gifted me?" 

Nor must Christian women forget that 
the peculiar position of esteem and res- 
pect which they hold in Christianized 
society, is a talent which may be used 
for the glory of him whose Gospel has 
secured it. 

Though physically weaker than men, 
and less courageous, perhaps, to meet 
dangers and oppositions, yet they have 
abundant compensation for this in the 
respect and courtesy that nearly all men 
and women yield to virtuous womanhood. 
They can go without fear of insult or re- 
pulse where men could not. Boisterous 
and rude men, reckless and abandoned 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 



87 



women, are accustomed to hush their riot, 
and conceal their wickedness in the 
presence of the true woman, and will 
receive from her with respect rebukes 
and entreaties to a better life, when these 
are given in the true Christian spirit. 
Doors that are insolently closed in the 
face of Christian men, will be respectfully 
left open for the entrance of the pious 
female on her errand of good statements 
and exhortations ; tracts and books will 
be quietly received from the hand of a 
woman, that would be denied or debated, 
refused or thrown aside when offered by 
men. Surely this power and influence is 
not conferred upon woman to be exercised 
merely in the home, or to exhaust itself 
with the politeness and courtesies of 
social life. 

Women must remember, too, that a 
large share of this outside work of the 



88 ADAPTATION OF WOMAN TO 

Church must be done in the homes of the 
people, where the female visitor will find 
the wife and the mother and the children 
much more frequently than the husband ; 
and in these will find an audience on 
which she can distil a more gentle, subtle 
and persuasive influence than man could. 
The wearied wife, the anxious mother, 
the lonely woman, often feeling that she 
is forgotten by the world, and neglected 
by the Church, will open her heart and 
life to the gentle Christian woman that 
has taken the trouble to visit her. She 
can talk to this female visitor as she 
cannot to the pastor or the missionary ; 
she has a listener who can understand 
her and sympathize with her, who is 
familiar with the peculiarities of tempe- 
rament and frailties of disposition of 
which a man can know but little. 

We often think that the hearts of wo- 



HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 89 

men must sometimes really yearn to hear 
Christ declared by woman's lips, to 
catch the inspiration in all its delicacy 
from a woman's heart. Her acquaintance 
with the workings of the female mind, 
and with the circumstances in which her 
sisters are placed, gives her in these 
homes a vast advantage over the visita- 
tions of men. 

But we need not pursue these thoughts 
further. Many more elements of special 
adaptation in the character and circum- 
stances of woman, to fit her for eminent 
success in personal efforts to save souls, 
and extend the benefits of the Gospel to 
the masses, will occur to the reader. 

We are sure society has no greater 
ally in the cause of civilization and 
Christianity than that of woman, true to 
the innate tenderness and purity of her 
sex, going forth with a cultivated intellect 



90 HOME MISSIONARY WORK. 

and a sanctified heart, to be a blessing 
not only in her own home, and by the 
example of a holy life in the Church, but 
to teach to others and in other homes 
the invaluable lessons of a living Chris- 
tianity. Whether male or female, let us 
work with all our might for him who 
has redeemed us, and who will publicly 
and richly reward his devoted and faith- 
ful servants. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN'S WORK. 

r 1 THERE are thousands of earnest 
-^- Christian women in the Church, 
who have the spirit of the Master, and 
who are ready to engage in his work, if 
the way was opened up before them. 

They are not idlers in the vineyard ; 
whatsoever their hands find to do, they 
do with their might, and wherever they 
move, a little circle is hallowed by their 
influence. But their efforts are neces- 
sarily circumscribed and spasmodic, as 
the Church has given them no specific 
work. 

What they have done has been done 
outside and independent of the Church. 

91 



92 A LESSON FOR THE CHURCH. 

In their Dorcas and Benevolent so- 
cieties, they have gone forth in the name 
of Philanthropy, instead of Religion, and 
the Church has lost the moral influence of 
their good deeds ; a loss she cannot very 
well afford. 

We might learn a lesson at this point 
from our enemies. 

The aggressive power of the Roman 
Catholic Church, in this age, is her women. 

Ninety-nine out of every hundred 
proselyted to that faith, are brought to 
her altars by her women. 

When Vincent de Paul and Madame 
Le Grass developed the plan of a band 
of working women in the Romish Church, 
under the title of " Sisters of Charity," 
they did more to promote her material 
interests, than if they had given her a 
kingdom, and hosts of armed men to de- 
fend it. 



SISTERS OF CHARITY. 93 

It was not, however, till the Reforma- 
tion had humbled her pride and shattered 
her power, that this call was made upon 
the women of the Romish Church. 

They had lived idle, secluded, aimless 
lives; had done little for the Church, 
and the Church had done still less for 
them, until the Reform movement made 
her willing to accept any instrumentality. 

For more than two hundred years this 
bapd of workers have gone on, gathering 
strength and numbers in every land, till 
their fame has become world-wide. 

They are, in an important sense, the 
aggressive power of the Church. 

Take from her this element of strength, 
this power for propagandism, with all its 
living, working appliances, its asylums 
and schools and hospitals and orphanages; 
take from her this mantle of charity, 
which covers her multitude of sins, and 



94 THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN PROSELYTED. 

hides her hideous deformities, and there 
would be but a dead unsightly carcass 
left. 

We will do well to remember that the 
efforts of this corps of women for the 
propagation of their peculiar dogmas, and 
for purposes of proselytism, are directed 
mainly towards the Protestant Church, 
or more wisely to the children of the 
Church. 

And here I will diverge to say tjiat 
there never was a greater folly, or abomina- 
tion in Israel, than that of Protestant 
parents sending their children to Catholic 
schools. 

It is making them to pass through the 
fires of Moloch. And yet thousands of 
the children of the Church are sacrificed 
annually on this altar. 

But to return. It would be unjust to 
admit that Protestant women were want- 



PROTESTANT WOMEN IN THE WAR. 95 

ing in the elements of character needed 
for religious work — in self-sacrifice, self- 
consecration, and spiritual power. 

I am prepared to assume and maintain, 
that if the way was opened up before 
them, they would exhibit a higher type 
of Christian charity, and do greater work 
for their Master, than their Catholic sis- 
ters. 

During the recent civil war it was my 
privilege to be connected with the Chris- 
tian Commission, and to superintend the 
work of a corps of Christian women em- 
ployed by them in hospital service. 

These women, nearly two hundred in 
number, were sent out, two and two, into 
the hospitals along the front lines from 
Richmond, or before Richmond, to Vicks- 
burg. 

And as I went from one little band of 
workers to another, and shared with them 



96 DEVOTION AND MORAL HEROISM. 

the dangers of contagion, and malaria, 
and shot and shell, and witnessed their 
devotion to God and humanity, I learned, 
what self-consecration, and self-denial 
meant in its deepest sense. 

There was no shrinking from cross- 
bearing and duty : no faltering in the 
presence of dangers and difficulties ; but 
with the same moral courage and enthu- 
siasm that characterized the martyrs in 
the midst of the flames, they stood among 
the wounded and the dying to tell the 
story of the Cross, and point the perishing 
to Jesus. 

They were noble Christian women, 
many of them ladies of culture and high 
social position, who had left homes of 
luxury to labor among the sick and 
wounded. 

They were indeed Angels of Mercy, in 
the hospitals before Richmond, where 



A RAIN* OF FIRE AND LEAD. 97 

thousands of the sick and wounded were 
gathered, and where the screaming shells, 
came over every little while to remind 
them of the nearness of the enemy's bat- 
teries. 

And in Knoxville and Nashville, when 
the rebel forces had cut off all communi- 
cation and supplies, and were pouring in 
shot and shell from every quarter, they 
stood calmly during those long, dark, 
bloody days and nights, amidst the rain 
of fire and lead, to minister to the wounded 
and suffering. 

There is now, as then, a large class of 
women in the Protestant Church whose 
hearts are all aglow with Divine love, and 
who are ready to make any sacrifice for 
the cause of Christ and the good of hu- 
manity; and who would, if they had an 
opportunity, vindicate their claims to the 
highest type of Christian womanhood. 



98 THE CHURCH MUST LEAD. 

The silence of the Church ; the absence 
of well-devised plans ; the formal present- 
ment of religion by the mass of its votaries, 
and the cold scrutinizing gaze of many who 
profess to be followers of Christ, but who 
regard an earnest out-going spirit of Chris- 
tianity as peculiar and fanatical, have 
effectually barred the doors against thou- 
sands of women who would otherwise 
have devoted themselves to missionary 
work in the home field. 

Poor, weak human nature, shrinks from 
the crucifixion of unauthorized work, 
more than from any well-defined duty the 
Church could impose. 

The Church must move forward, for 
she is the pillar of cloud by day, and the 
pillar of fire by night, that must lead on 
the hosts of God to victory. 

The failure of the Church to recognize 
and employ women in the work of evan- 



UNEMPLOYED FORCES. 99 

gelization has kept in comparative idle- 
ness, more than one-half of her effective 
force, and by far the most valuable for 
personal ministrations in the homes of 
the people. 

This great undeveloped, unemployed 
power, which now lies dormant in the 
bosom of the Church, paralyzing her en- 
ergies, might become a mighty enginery 
for good if properly combined and directed. 

And one of the most significant and 
hopeful signs of the times is a disposition 
on the part of all Christian denominations, 
to consider plans for enlisting, and sys- 
tematically employing this element of 
strength. 

The Church cannot reasonably expect 
to keep pace with the quickened activities 
of the world, with more than one-half of 
her effective force unemployed. 

Yes, worse than idle, for many of her 



100 WORLDLINESS IN THE CHURCH. 

women are giving their time and energies 
to the work of the world. 

The Church has failed to employ them, 
and " Satan, who finds some mischief still 
for idle hands to do/' has set them to 
hemming ruffles, and frilling their gar- 
ments, and frizzing their hair, and many 
of them are in full chase with the Christ- 
less multitudes after the follies and 
fashions of the times. 

So that instead of an aggressive power, 
going out from the Church, to overcome 
sin, and conquer the world to Christ, a 
tide of worldliness has set in upon the 
Church, obliterating distinctive lines, and 
we can hardly tell where the Church 
ends and the world begins. 

We come upon the stage of life at a 
time when the activities of the world 
are being quickened ; in an age of intense 
earnestness and social energy, when all 



WORK OF THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD. 101 

the forces of life are being brought into 
position, and the watchword is, Action ! 
Action ! ! Action ! ! ! 

The world is combining and engaging 
her entire force; the women of the world 
are assuming an important part of her 
work, and exerting a wide-spread influ- 
ence in evil courses. 

WORK OF THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD. 

If we may judge of women's ability 
to work for Jesus, by the ability they 
show in the work of the world, by the 
influence they wield in evil courses, we 
are forced to conclude that they possess 
almost unlimited power for good. 

Facts are better than arguments, when 
the facts are known. Let us look at 
well-known facts. 

Two of the largest " Emporiums of 
Fashion" on this side of the Atlantic, 



102 THEATRES MANAGED BY WOMEN. 

centres of influence that control the out- 
lay of millions of dollars, and control 
the time and thought of multitudes in 
and out of the Church, are owned and 
managed by women. 

Some of the largest theatres in the 
country, where multitudes gather nightly 
for entertainment, are owned and con- 
ducted by women. Others equally large 
and expensive are now in course of 
erection. 

More than one-half of the actors upon 
the stage are women 5 and they are not 
there as mere assistants, or ornaments, 
but to take a leading part. And so po- 
tent has their influence become, that they 
largely control the public amusements 
of the age. 

The time was, when boys played 
women on the stage, and men dealt in 
whiskey, and tobacco, and did the dirty 



, 



CIRCUSES MANAGED BY WOMEN. 103 

work of the world generally; but those 
days are past, and women are assuming 
their full share of the devil's work. 

One of the largest and lowest circuses 
in the land, and other smaller ones, are 
owned and managed by women; man- 
aged in all their horrid details, includ- 
ing that of training and governing wild 
beasts, and men and women of baser 
and fiercer passions than even the beasts 
of the field. 

Some of the largest gambling saloons, 
tobacco manufactories, whiskey and other 
distilleries, are owned and conducted by 
women. 

How a woman, who has anything left 
of the refinement and delicacy of a 
woman's nature, can pollute and be- 
draggle herself in gambling hells and 
tobacco slums, or how, with a spark of 
a woman's soul left in her, she can take 



104 DISTILLERIES MANAGED BY WOMEN. 

the corn that ought to go to make bread 
for the hungry poor, and superintend it 
through all its processes, till it comes 
out liquid fire to kill and destroy, I can- 
not understand; but the facts are be- 
fore me. 

And thus we might descend, step by 
step, to the lowest dens of vice and 
infamy that pollute the earth, to find 
women systematically engaged in evil 
courses, and showing wonderful energy 
and ability in the work of the world. 

Now, I am not ready to admit, that 
women have ability for evil only. I con- 
fess with shame their wrong-doings ; but 
I claim for them larger ability for good 
titan for evil. 

And so universally has this claim been 
conceded, that grossness, profanity, infide- 
lity and drunkenness in women are consi- 
dered an outrage upon their womanhood. 



RICH NATURAL ENDOWMENTS. 105 

And why? Because delicacy, purity, 
faith and sobriety have always character- 
ized them, and the violation of these 
well-known laws of their natures excites 
surprise and alarm. 

If women, then, forced out of their le- 
gitimate sphere into fields of work so 
uncongenial to them, can wield such 
power, what may they not do when cal- 
led to the higher ministries of life for 
which heaven has so peculiarly and rich- 
ly endowed them? 

I believe that there is now lying dor- 
mant in the Church, in the person of her 
women, the very element of strength 
that could most successfully be wielded 
against the strongholds of the adversary. 

Every city, and almost every village 
in the land, is being canvassed for evil 
purposes by the women of the world; 
why may they not be canvassed by the 



106 THE LOGIC OF EVENTS. 

women of the Church in the interests 
of Christ and humanity ? 

The women of the stage hold their 
audiences nightly till a late hour, with 
stories of love and murder ; why may not 
the women of the Church tell the story 
of Jesus and his love — the love that 
gives victory over death and the grave ? 

The changed times demand greater 
activity on the part of Christian women. 

Let us not deceive ourselves, or ig- 
nore the logic of events. 

We are in the midst of a terrible con- 
flict, and we are to conquer, or be con- 
quered. We must oppose with our 
whole force the world and overcome it, 
or the enemy will come in like a flood 
and overcome us. 

" It is a little mortifying," says a 
Christian writer, " that the world should 
have been actively discussing the sphere 



woman's power and weapons. 107 

of women in social and civil arenas for a 
score of years, before the Church should 
be fairly waked up to the necessity of 
inquiring what she has to gain in the 
investigation of this question as regards 
herself. .... 

"A great force has been lost in the 
Christian warfare of the world, by 
ignoring woman's power, and woman's 
weapons. 

" As a great army needs its scouts, its 
pickets, its skirmishers, its infantry, its ca- 
valry, its rear and van guard, so the army 
of Christ just now emphatically needs all 
arms of the service, wherewith to meet 
the hosts of sin and degradation. 

" Who does not know that the present 
practical aspirations of the Church re- 
quire labor that woman alone can per- 
form effectively ? " 

Keeping up the figure, I may add that 



108 THE SPIRITUALITY OF WOMEN. 

the battle must be carried into the enemy's 
camp. The heavy artillery of the pulpit 
is too far away, and too elevated in its 
range to reach the masses. 

The infantry forces must be brought 
into action, and an advance made all 
along the line ; the contest to be success- 
ful must be at close quarters, a hand-to- 
hand fight in the homes of the people. 

Christianity comes to women with 
stronger claims than to men, because 
they are more spiritual, and have larger 
ability to apprehend its deep meaning 
and respond to its demands. 

Were evidence needed to sustain this 
statement, it would be found in the well- 
known fact, that more than two-thirds of 
the Church are women ; or in that other 
well-known fact, that more than three- 
fourths of the inmates of our prisons and 
penitentiaries are men. 



THE NEED OF THE WORLD. 109 

27ie great need of the world, is not that 
women should become more like men, but 
that men should become mere like women. 

Certainly, not like the empty-headed, 
deformed creatures of fashion, who bury 
themselves in a heap of finery, and whose 
thoughts and affections rise no higher 
than themselves, or the "puss in boots" 
who dangle attendance at their will. 

But like true women, whose faith 
and love and sympathy take in all the 
world. 

Who postpone self to consider the needs 
of others, and who, in their meekness and 
charity, go down like white-robed angels 
to the fallen and broken-hearted ones, to 
whisper words of love and hope, and to 
weep with those who weep. 

More like them in all the heart quali- 
ties that fit true women for the higher 

ministries of life. 
10 



110 WOMEN AT THE CROSS. 

The Lord in Eden, when the guilty 
pair stood trembling before him, recog- 
nized the higher spirituality of the wo- 
man when he gave the promise of salva- 
tion through her. 

And when the time had fully come, 
and the promise of the Father was about 
to be fulfilled, she proved herself worthy 
of the high trust committed to her, by 
her fidelity to Jesus when all men had 
forsaken him. 

I have often thought that the heart 
of the Blessed Christ must have been 
comforted, as he looked down upon the 
little band of women, who, careless of the 
mocking multitude, gathered so lovingly 
about the cross during the bloody agony 
of the crucifixion. 

Nor does it seem strange that he should 
reveal to a woman, first of all, his risen 
glory, and send her out with the first 



THE RECORD OF THE AGES. Ill 

glad message of salvation through a 
crucified and risen Saviour. 

The records of the ages show, that 
much of the benevolent work of the 
world has been done by women 

The glory of her presence has brought 
joy and gladness to many of the dark 
places of the earth, in the years of the 
past. 

And she still stands the guardian angel 
of man's spiritual destiny; and if hu- 
manity is ever uplifted from the slums 
of passion and appetite, to the dignity of 
Christian manhood and womanhood, 
woman, in the hands of the Divine Re- 
deemer, must be the chief instrumentality. 
The sainted Bishop Thomson said : 
"It seems to me that one-half of the 
Christian Church has not as yet been 
brought into action except very im- 
perfectly ; and yet it is able to act, and 



112 bishop Thomson's views. 

act more efficiently than the force al- 
ready engaged. 

" Why not bring it into action ? Every 
thing seems to invite the whole force into 
the field. 

" Woman has a potent influence in the 
Church, and upon the world in her 
present relation ; but how much greater 
that influence might be. 

" It seems to me that this is just what 
the Christian Church needs at the present 
crisis; to bring the women into more 
active relation to society, and especially 
in the Church." 

The systematic employment of women 
in benevolent and Christian work, is a 
felt want in the Church, and their su- 
perior ability and fitness for such labor, 
well understood facts. 

And when the Christian Church, heed- 
ing the providential indications of the 



A FELT WANT IN THE CHURCH. 113 

times, shall recognize them as a part of 
her working force, and provide ways and 
means for their employment, and give full 
scope to their spiritual powers, then, and 
not till then, may we hope to see the 
dawn of the millennial glory 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FOLLIES AND EXCUSES OF UNFAITHFUL 
PROFESSORS OF RELIGION, DISCUSSED. 

r I THERE are multitudes of women in 
-*- the Church who are doing little, 
or nothing for Christ and humanity. 

They look out upon the fields white 
unto the harvest, but when the Spirit 
comes to them saying, " Why stand ye 
here all the day idle ? Go into my vine- 
yard and labor," they begin with one 
accord to make excuse. 

A lack of time and ability is pleaded, 

and the demands of God are set aside 

for the claims of the world. 

The family, society, or business takes 
114 



a woman's first duty is at home. 115 

up all their time, and occupies all their 
thoughts. 

Strongly intrenched behind these ex- 
cuses, they spend their lives in idleness, 
or in the service of the world. 

But just here, I desire to be distinctly 
understood in regard to the sacredness 
of home claims. 

/ believe a woman s first duty is at 
home, and that no woman ought to feel 
herself called upon to go into other fields, 
until her home work is done, and done 
well. 

The obligations resting down upon the 
wife, and mother, and sister, and daugh- 
ter are very sacred, and may not be set 
aside for anything else. 

I go still farther, and claim that the 
home work of the women of the Church 
ought to be done a great deal better than 
the home work of the women of the world. 



116 RELIGION IN THE FAMILY. 

Eeligion has done very little for them, 
if the inner circles, in which they move, 
have not felt its power, if it has not 
made them better wives and mothers — 
better in all the relations of life. 

This much accomplished — the home 
work done, and done well — they are in- 
vited into other fields. 

"Then I shall never go!" will be the 
response of many a weary wife and 
mother. "I have so much to do at 
home, that if I do my home work and 
do it well, I will have no time for any- 
thing else." 

Of this each one must judge for her- 
self; but before so important a matter 
is decided upon, it should be carefully, 
and prayerfully canvassed in the closet. 

It has been said, and said truly, that 
" A woman's work is never done." 

There are so many things that women 



a woman's work is never done. 117 

can do — they have sought out for them- 
selves so many devices — that no woman 
can do the one-tenth part of " woman's 
work." 

The women of the world are obliged 
to discriminate ; they can only undertake 
part of the work. Surely the women of 
the Church can do no less, and the true 
line of discrimination for them must be 
between the necessary and unnecessary 
work. And if careful adjustment is 
made, they will find that a large part of 
their labor may be dispensed with. 

The time spent by the women of the 
Church in dress and personal adornment 
— in useless and ornamental work — is 
almost incredible. 

It tires one even to think of the frill- 
ing, and flouncing, and tucking, and 
braiding, and trimming, and embroidery, 
put upon their garments 



118 DRESS AND ORNAMENTAL WORK. 

And of their handiwork in silks, and 
worsteds, and wax, and paper, and hair, 
and leather, and shells, and mosses, and 
beads, and ribbons, and flowers, and 
feathers, there is no end. 

I have known women in the Church 
to spend months of precious time over a 
piece of embroidery not much larger 
than a lady's pocket-handkerchief, and 
the while make excuse that they had no 
time for Christ's work. 

What a spectacle for heaven to look 
down upon ! 

A woman in the Church, bearing the 
precious name of Jesus, busy with such 
trifles — weaving with fingers that will 
soon be cold in death, gossamer threads 
that will not bear the washing or the 
wearing, while sinners for whom Christ 
died are perishing all around her! While 
hearts are breaking, that she might bind 



THE BIT OF EMBROIDERY. 119 

up — while feet are wandering, that she 
might lead to the pearly gates — while 
weak ones are falling, that she might 
lift up and guide to immortality ! 

What a fearful position ! 

Reader, dare you venture to the judg- 
ment with such an excuse ? 

What then shall I say of the frilled 
and elaborately trimmed dresses, over 
which thousands of the women of the 
Church are spending so much of their 
precious time ? 

The bit of embroidery is wrapped up 
in a napkin, and covered away from the 
light, may be, with the one talent of the 
owner ; but the frilled and gaily wrought 
garments are worn out into the street, 
and into the Church, and become a 
stumbling-block to the poor, and a snare 
to the vain. 

Now for every frill or flounce on a 



120 15,000 STITCHES ON A FLOUNCE. 

lady's dress, if it is well made, it takes 
from eight to fifteen thousand stitches to 
put it there. 

It may then be set down as a rule, 
that the women of the Church who are 
so elaborately trimming their dresses, if 
they do the work themselves, will have 
no time for Christ's work ; if they hire it 
done, will have little money for bene- 
volent and Christian enterprises. 

A young lady, who was recently con- 
verted, and who gave up these vanities 
by giving herself fully to Christ, told me 
that in the days of her worldliness and 
folly, it had taken two women two 
weeks to flounce and trim one of her 
dresses. " But," she added, with a look 
of relief and satisfaction, "I am done 
with all such trouble and vexation; 
henceforth my time and money shall be 
given to Christ and his work." 



YOUNG LADIES OF THE CHURCH. 121 

Would that all who profess to love 
Jesus, and to have given up the world, 
would follow her noble example. 

For the excess and extravagance in 
dress of many of the young women of 
the Church, is not only contrary to the 
plain teachings of the Word of God, but 
a violation of the dictates of common 
sense and refined taste. 

They load themselves down with 

chains and trinkets and ornaments, till 

they look more like the women of 

heathendom, than like the angelic beings 

in whose pure society they hope to spend 

an eternity. 

An artist would justly forfeit his 

reputation, if he were to represent any 

one of the Christian graces, or a celestial 

being, in the outlandish and cumbersome 

garb of a modern belle of the Church. 

Not long ago, assisted by a distin- 
IX 



122 A MATHEMATICAL CALCULATION. 

guished minister of Brooklyn, I made a 
calculation of the amount of work on a 
dress of a lady of the Church. 

We measured a little distance, and 
counted the stitches, and then measured 
round and round, and reached our con- 
clusions very much as astronomers com- 
pute the distance to the planets and the 
fixed stars. 

We found to our astonishment that, 
after the dress was made, it had taken 
52,000 stitches to make and put on the 
flouncing and the trimming. 

We may not expect that the women 
of the Church who are giving themselves 
to these vanities will find time for Christ's 
work. 

Many a husband has said, " Don't ask 
my wife to do anything for the Church, 
or the poor. She has enough to do at 
home, she is killing herself as it is with 



WOMEN KILLING THEMSELVES. 123 

over work." And he has spoken the 
truth. But the unsophisticated husband 
does not see, that her work is ruining his 
children, cursing the world, and blight- 
ing the Church ; that she is sacrificing hei 
all to Fashion. 

Month after month, and year after 
year, the worldly women of the Church 
toil on, for the personal adornment of 
themselves and their children, till heart 
and flesh fail, and an untimely grave 
covers them out of our sight. 

A Martyr to Fashion, would be the 
most truthful, if not the most appropriate 
epitaph that could be written on their 
tombstones. 

Many a professedly Christian mother 
has wrapped her enfeebled infant in em- 
broidered muslins and flannels, into 
which her own and her child's life blood 
have been wrought. 



124 MARTYRS TO FASHION. 

In many a professedly Christian home, 
the first lesson a child learns, is how to 
dress in the prevailing style. 

It leaves its cradle admiring its fine 
clothes, and suffers hours of torture and 
trial from curling papers, and crimping 
pins, before it has learned to say, " Now 
I lay me down to sleep." 

It is not surprising that the tender 
twig, bent world- ward from the very 
first, should turn from the Church to the 
opera, the theatre, and the ball-room. 

A few years ago, a young girl in such 
a home as this, was deeply impressed by 
her pious Sabbath school teacher with 
the importance of giving her heart to 
Jesus. 

But while she was seeking salvation, 
her mother, a worldly minded professor 
of religion, determined to send her to a 
dancing school. 



A YOUNG GIRL SACRIFICED. 125 

The poor child threw her arms about 
her mothers neck and begged with tears 
to be excused from going, as she felt that 
it would be wrong. And her brother, an 
irreligious young man, was so moved by 
her tears and arguments, that he inter- 
ceded in her behalf. But the mother 
persisted in her determination. " For," 
said she, " our position demands it ; we 
are wealthy, and it is necessary that my 
daughter should acquire the graces and 
accomplishments that will fit her to shine 
in fashionable society." 

A few years passed, and the young 
girl had become the gayest of the gay. 

Parental authority had compelled her 
to take the first lessons, and now the 
theatre and the ball-room were her 
especial delight, and parental control was 
not strong enough to check her in her 
head-long course. 



126 ELOPES WITH A WORTHLESS SCAMP. 

A climax was reached lately, by the 
young lady eloping with a worthless, 
graceless scamp, who had nothing to 
recommend him but his ability " to trip 
the light fantastic toe." 

The foolish mother had "sown the 
wind and she reaped the whirlwind." 

" We cannot serve two masters." " If 
we love the world, the love of the Father 
is not in us." 

We may say that we do not love the 
world, that our affections are not upon 
its vanities ; but if its trappings are upon 
us, and we are giving time and money 
for worldly display, and sacrificing moral 
principle for worldly position and esteem, 
we deceive ourselves. Actions and words 
must accord, the profession and the life 
must harmonize. 

" She leads a ladies' prayer-meeting 
beautifully," said a distinguished minister, 



DIAMONDS TO BUILD A CHURCH. 127 

speaking of a leading lady of the Church ; 
" but," he added, with a sigh, " she wears 
enough diamonds to start a missionary 
society, or build a church, and her shawls 
would run a benevolent society for a 
year." 

But it is argued : " It does not matter 
what the outward adornings are, so the 
heart is right." 

True ; but if the heart is right, and is 
hept in proper frame, everything else will 
be set right. 

The outward life is the index to the 
heart. 

As the hands upon the dial-plate in- 
dicate the hour of the day, so the out- 
ward adornings and words reveal the ad- 
vance of the soul in spiritual life. 

But there is a still higher moral aspect 
to this question. 

When we come into the Church we 



128 BAPTISM OF A FASHIONABLE LADY. 

take upon ourselves the vows of our holy 
Christianity, vows more solemn than any 
oath, in any earthly court. 

Before the Lord, and the great congre- 
gation, we renounce the devil and all his 
works — the vain pomp and glory of the 
world— and consecrate our souls and 
bodies a living sacrifice to God. 

And accept thus publicly the Scrip- 
tures as the rule of our life and practice. 

But many, like Ananias and Sapphira, 
have kept back part of the price, and 
have stood before the altar to perjure 
themselves by assuming vows that they 
did not intend to keep. 

Not long ago, I was present at a bap- 
tismal service. Among the candidates, 
a young lady presented herself at the 
altar, arrayed in all the extravagancies 
of the prevailing fashion. 

Her dress was befrilled from top to 



ELABORATE HEAD-GEAR. 129 

bottom, and her overskirt was looped up 
over an immense pannier, in a most be- 
wildering style. 

There were no less than* three chains 
about her neck ; her ears were dragged 
out of shape by very showy pendants, 
that almost touched her shoulders ; her 
wrists were ornamented with bracelets, 
and her fingers with rings. 

But the most complex and showy part 
of her costume she carried upon her 
head. 

Although her neck was slender and 
her head small, an immense chignon 
displayed its well-rounded proportions; 
over and around this excrescence of fash- 
ion, a mass of curls and frizzes spread 
themselves in every direction ; mingling 
freely with the flowers and ribbons of an 
elaborately trimmed hat, the crowning 
glory of the whole, on the pinnacle of 



130 A NEW MODE OF BAPTISM, 

which a full-blown rose and a full-grown 
butterfly rested in quiet beauty. 

The solemn service went on, the holy 
vows were assumed, and all was in readi- 
ness for the application of the water, 
"the outward sign of an inward work." 

But when the hats of the lady candi- 
dates were removed, I saw, to my dismay, 
that the immense excrescence on the 
young lady's head covered the entire 
scalp, leaving no room for the applica- 
tion of the water after the usual mode. 

" What will the minister do ? " I ques- 
tioned, mentally. "Will he baptize that 
excrescence of fashion, or will he baptize 
the woman? And if he applies the 
water to that mass of frizzed hair, be- 
longing, may be, to some one under the 
sod, will that be a valid baptism — will 
not that, rather, be a baptism for the 
dead than the living ? " 



MORAL PERJURY. 131 

It was a moment of intense interest 
to all, when the minister stood before 
her, for it was very manifest that he did 
not see his way out of the difficulty at 
once. However, after a moment or two 
of perplexity, with one hand he raised 
her head, and with the other he applied 
the water to her face. 

And now I ask, Can any one in the 
immediate violation of the obligations of 
the Church, and without any purpose to 
live new lives, take these solemn vows 
without moral perjury? 

Whatever may be the answer, it will 
be admitted, that if the true women of 
the Church would stand up in their 
moral integrity, and reprove sin and 
worldliness by a positive Christian life 
and influence, no woman of the world 
would dare present herself at our altars 
in the garb of a devotee of fashion. 



132 DRESS OF CHILDREN. 

But we have not contended for " the 
faith once delivered to the saints." We 
have not " lifted up the voice like a 
trumpet." And we ought to blush with 
shame, when we see the vanities and sins 
that now despoil the Church, and make 
it a show-room of fashion. 

THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH. 

Multitudes of the children of the 
Church appear on our streets, and in our 
Sabbath schools, bedecked and beplumed 
like the veriest butterflies; till their 
little heads are turned, and their little 
hearts swell out with pride and vanity, 
leaving no room for thoughts of Jesus 
and Heaven. 

No wonder that in the midst of such a 
display of fluting, and flouncing, and friz- 
zing, and sashing, that dress in many of 
our Sabbath schools is the central thought. 



DOORS CLOSED AGAINST POOR CHILDREN. 133 

The mothers who are thus extrava- 
gantly dressing their children, are not 
only fostering feelings of pride and van- 
ity, that may ruin their own dear ones, 
but they are closing the Sabbath school 
doors against the children of the poor. 

They cannot come into the presence 
of these gaily-dressed children of fashion 
and bear the scrutiny of their laughing, 
prying eyes; and they stay away. 

And, in many cases, the only door lead- 
ing heavenward for them — the only win- 
dow that would let in the light of truth — 
is closed against them, and they are left 
to drift on in the slums of vice in which 
they find themselves — to drift down, to 
ruin and to death. 

Mechanics and laborers, who toil all 
the week long for the bread they eat, 
and are denying themselves many of the 
comforts of life, that they may lay by a 

12 



134 GOD NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS. 

little, to put a roof of their own over 
their heads, will not spend their hard 
earned money, if they are wise, in 
plumes and furbelows for their children ; 
and if they go to the Sabbath school at 
all, it must be in plain clothes. 

They go, to find themselves, too often, 
in the midst of a gaily dressed company, 
and come away wounded and humiliated, 
and seek their associations elsewhere. 

What answer will these vain mothers 
make, when the Judge of all the earth, 
in whose sight these poor neglected little 
ones are as precious as the children of 
a king, shall require the blood of souls 
at their hands ? 

If all the weak, vain mothers in the 
Church, could, by any possible means, be 
induced to lay aside these plumes, and 
sashes, and frills, and furbelows, and 
send their children to the Sunday school 



SABBATH AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 135 

planily dressed, the movement would in- 
crease the attendance, and advance the 
spiritual interest of the Sabbath school 
cause, more than all the speeches and 
conventions imaginable. 

And this evil, which is sapping the 
life of our Sabbath schools, is extending 
to the Public schools of the land, and is 
more to be feared than the combined 
powers of the Papacy. 

The Sabbath school is the chief corner 
stone of the Church, and the Public 
school the chief corner stone of the 
Republic. 

And as long as the masses — the poor 
as well as the rich — can enjoy the bene- 
fits of these two grand institutions, we 
need not fear for Christianity, or Liberty. 

Dr. J. W. Alexander, writing of the 
worldliness of the children of the Church, 
says: 



136 dr. j. w. Alexander's views. 

"As I grow older as a parent, my 
views are changing fast as to the degree 
of conformity to the world which we 
should allow in our children. 

"I am horror-struck to count up the 
profligate children of pious parents, and 
even of ministers. 

" The door at which those influences 
enter, which countervail parental in- 
struction and example, I am persuaded, 
is yielding to the ways of good society. 
By dress, books, and amusements, an 
atmosphere is formed, which is not that 
of Christianity. 

" More than ever do I feel that our 
families must stand in a kind but de- 
termined opposition to the fashions of 
the world, breasting the waves like the 
Eddystone light-house. 

"And I have found nothing yet which 
requires more courage and independence, 



EAR-RINGS. 137 

than to rise even a little, but decidedly, 
above the par of the religious world 
around us." 

EAR-RINGS. 

Of all the vanities and absurdities of 
fashion that have crept into the Church, 
none perhaps is more useless and ridicu- 
lous than that of wearing ear-rings. 

No part of the human body is so little 
affected by the ordinary changes of life 
as the ear. 

If allowed to stand in the place where 
God put it, it is erect, shell-shaped, trans- 
lucent, and delicately beautiful. But 
Satan has defiled the earth, and put his 
mark upon the most beautiful and endur- 
ing things. 

It has been a custom in all ages for 
stock-growers to put the mark of their 
ownership on the ears of their animals ; 
and the Beast, very early in the history 



138 A MARK OF THE BEAST. 

of the world, soon after Eve was driven 
out of Eden, managed to put his mark 
on the ears of woman. 

It may, or may not, be the particular 
mark of which John speaks, but very 
clearly it is a mark of the Beast, It is 
not God's mark, — the ears are not pierced 
at the command of the Master, and to 
promote the interests of the Redeemer's 
kingdom. 

We read that when Jacob went up 
with his household to Bethel, to build an 
altar unto God, that at his command, 
" They gave unto Jacob all the strange 
gods w r hich were in their hands, and 
all the ear-rings which were in their 
ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak 
which was by Shechem." 

The controversy thus successfully 
inaugurated by Jacob 616 years after 
the flood, against this satanic and bar- 



A RELIC OF BARBARISM. 139 

barous custom, has been kept up till the 
present day. But Satan still holds wo- 
man by the ears, and the more besotted 
and degraded a nation or tribe, the 
heavier the badges of his power in the 
ears of their women. 

This relic of barbarism has come down 
to us, and many of our women bear the 
marks of the Beast, and display the 
badges of his ownership ; and their ears, 
the perfect and beautiful creation of the 
Divine hand, are pierced, and mangled, 
and dragged out of shape and despoiled 
of their beauty. 

The rich and the poor, the lady in her 
silks and the beggar in her rags, are alike 
the victims of this deforming and bar- 
barous custom. 

But ear-rings are not only a mark of 
the Beast, and a relic of the gross bar- 
barisms of the early ages, but lead to an 



140 WOMEN OF Ul#CraCUMCIZED EARS. 

extravagant outlay of money that belongs 
to other purposes. 

This evil has crept into the Church, 
and thousands of women go to the com- 
munion table with the money in their ears 
that ought to be in the missionary box, or 
educating some poor orphan child ; for 
there is enough treasure in the uncircum- 
cized ears of the women of the Church, 
to send a corps of missionaries to every 
nation under the skies, and enough 
spent annually to sustain them in their 
work. 

Or, turned into another channel ; there 
is enough to build an Orphan House in 
every State in the Union, and enough 
spent annually for ear-ornaments, to sup- 
port all the needy orphan children of the 
land. So that, in truth, they go to the 
Lord's table with the price of souls in 
their ears. 



THE PLEA OF SOKE EYES. 141 

" But/' say some, " I have weak eyes, 
and my physician advised me to have my 
ears pierced." But did he advise you to 
heal the wound as soon as possible and 
wear heavy ornaments ? 

Looking around us we might suppose 
that we had a nation of weak-eyed wo- 
men; for most of the ladies I have 
spoken to on the subject complain of 
weak eyes. 

Now, no intelligent physician will 
claim any merit for this remedy, unless 
the ears are kept sore and discharging, 
and I observe that most ladies heal 
them as soon as possible ; and indeed it 
would be a pitiable sight to see one-half 
or two-thirds of our women going about 
with sore ears. 

If piercing the ears is such a sovereign 
remedy for the eyes, why do not men 
receive the same treatment ? 



142 IMAGINARY BEAUTY. 

But the fact is, young girls want to look 
womanly, and old women want to look 
girlish ; and women with round faces 
want them to look long; and peaked- 
faced women want theirs to look broad ; 
and many women want to look beautiful; 
and, like the women of heathen lands, 
who color their teeth and paint their 
eyelids, and tattoo their faces, and im- 
agine that they look beautiful, so our 
women imagine they are adding to 
their personal charms, when in truth 
they are only making themselves ridicu- 
lous in the eyes of men and angels. 

Those who have carefully looked 
through the Church will agree with me, 
that there is no one article of dress, or 
ornament worn by woman, which draws 
the lines more closely, and definitely, 
between worldly professors of religion 



WANT OF MORAL COURAGE. 143 

and the active spiritual Christians of the 
Church, than ear-rings. 

Many, I will admit, who have higher 
aspirations than dress and display, but 
who lack the moral courage to stand by 
their convictions, are lashed into these 
vanities by the dogmatic spirit of the 
world. 

For it requires a martyr-like courage 
to resist the overwhelming tide of world- 
liness coming in upon the Church ; and 
the higher the social position, the more 
strongly the claims of the world are in- 
sisted upon. 

False ideas prevail in regard to the 
privileges of Christians who enjoy 
wealth and position ; for they are sup- 
posed to be released, in some way, from 
the moral obligations and restraints, in 
regard to dress and display, that bind 
others in the more common walks of life. 



144 LADY WASHINGTON. 



LADY WASHINGTON. 



Lady Washington, who was perhaps 
the most charming and accomplished 
woman that has ever occupied the Pre- 
sidential Mansion, had the courage to 
maintain in that exalted position, the 
simplicity of dress and manners that had 
always characterized her. 

There were, however, in that early 
day, those who loved dress and display, 
who found fault with Mrs. Washington's 
plain ways. After due consultation they 
determined to call upon the wife of the 
President and insist upon greater cere- 
mony and splendor. We quote from a 
widely circulating journal an account of 
the interview :* 

"One morning three fair dames ap- 
peared at the Goverment House; they 
* Harper's Bazaar. 



mrs. Washington's visitors. 145 

were dressed out in the utmost gayety 
and splendor, as if nature had formed 
them merely to carry finery and trinkets. 

Diamonds sparkled in their ears, and 
glittered on their necks. Their hair 
was puffed out, frizzed, crimped, and tor- 
tured in every form but that of nature's 
elegance. They wore also high head- 
dresses, adorned with artificial flowers 
and nodding plumes and fluttering rib- 
bons, to crown the edifice of hair which 
fashion then decreed should encumber 
their heads and brains. 

Their hands were emblazoned with 
rings, their wrists encumbered with 
ruffles, clasps, and bracelets. Stiff mus- 
lin rose like foam around their chests 
and shoulders; and though their rich 
brocaded silks fell in costly folds about 
them, and partially hid the pressure that 

gripped in their waists, yet the oppressed 
13 



146 THE BURDENS OF FASHION. 

heart had to sympathize with the op- 
pressed brain overweighted with fashion's 
load. 

They came rustling and fluttering into 
the presence of the lady they sought. 
She received them in a plainly-furnished 
room, in which she spent her mornings. 

With dignified courtesy the thought- 
ful matron rose to greet her visitors. 

Her well-filled book-case, made for 
use, not show, was behind her chair; 
her table, with her work-basket and ma- 
terials before her ; and in her hands her 
knitting-needles, the useful companions 
of many lonely hours. 

Gravely, yet most courteously she heard 
the remarks which with faltering speech 
they had come to make. For they did 
not find it so easy to speak of luxury and 
display, as desirable, when they were 
face to face with the noble woman who, 



GOOD ADVICE. 147 

through years of anxiety and privation, 
had ministered to the wants, and miti- 
gated the sufferings of the soldiers during 
the terrible struggle for independence. 

Somehow their faces lost the defiant 
air and vain simper they had worn 
when they first entered her presence, 
and had deepened into seriousness and 
respectful attention as the wife of Wash- 
ington, after hearing them, said : 

" Ladies, you came to advise me, and, 
as far as kindness prompted you, I am 
obliged for the motive, though I cannot 
act on your suggestions. 

" You are in the bloom of life. Many 
years I trust are before you. My age, 
even more than my station, sanction my 
giring you some advice. 

"Dear ladies, suffer the word of exhorta- 
tion. Should Christian women, honored 
wives and mothers, be content to aim at 



148 Washington's mother 

no higher glory than that of the insect 
that glitters in the sunbeam — to be as the 
fire-fly, or the humming-bird ? 

"You spoke of the greatness of my 
husband. His dear mother ever looked 
well to the ways of her household. She 
taught him to be industrious by her ex- 
ample, for the spinning-wheel spun the 
clothes he wore from his earliest days ; 
and she, like myself, loved the knitting- 
needles." (She looked, as she spoke, at 
her knitting.) 

" Ladies, during eight years of ceasless 
struggle, the women of America, the 
mothers of the land, spent no money on 
finery for themselves. They spent all 
their available means in providing clothes 
for the army, which, but for that succor, 
must have perished in our long and bitter 
winters. 

" I do not wish to boast ; I did only my 



franklin's daughter. 149 

duty ; nay, I know it was my privilege, 
as Washington's wife, to toil for the men 
under his command. 

"I always went into winter-quarters 
with him. In summer time, I and his 
mother and my friends were at our 
spinning-wheels. Once in the winter, I 
had sixteen looms under one roof, all 
weaving cloth — coarse indeed, but warm 
for the soldiers of the nation. 

" Trust me, woman was made for nobler 
ends than merely to display finery, which 
mars rather than improves the graces 
that nature has bestowed." 

" I know," said one of the ladies, 
thoughtfully, "that Mrs. Sarah Bache, 
the daughter of Benjamin Franklin, sold 
her ornaments and all she could spare to 
commence a fund, which other ladies in 
Philadelphia were induced to aid both by 
hand and purse. They made, I remem- 



150 MRS. warren's poem. 

ber, 2200 shirts in one season for the 
army." 

" Yes, dear young ladies, the example 
of Franklin's daughter influenced the less 
thoughtful, but not less kind-hearted 
ladies of the city. 

" One faithful woman — how much she 
can do to check the influence of luxury 
and folly ! Our countrywomen before 
the troubles had grown fond of foreign 
fashions, and it was feared that, as we 
depended for luxuries on Europe, the 
patriotic desire for independence might be 
checked by a cause so trivial, and yet so 
dangerous, as the frippery of female 
fashions. 

" Mrs. Warren, I remember, did good 
service to the cause of liberty and truth, 
when in a poem she wrote, she satirized 
her countrywomen's love for dress." 

" That poem," said another lady, " was 



AN INVENTORY. 151 

one suggested by the remark of a friend 
of hers : that all articles of foreign 
commerce should be dispensed with, ex- 
cept absolute necessaries. I remember 
Mrs. Warren amusingly put a fancied 
list of articles an American lady could 
not dispense with; I forget the words, 
but—" 

" I can find them/' said the lady Presi- 
dent, reaching her hand to a book on the 
shelves behind her, and after a little 
search, coming to the words : 

" An inventory clear 

Of all she needs, Larnira offers here 

Some lawns, lutestrings, blonde and Mechlin laces, 

Fringes and jewels, fans and tweezer cases ; 

Gay cloaks, and hats of every shape and size, 

Scarfs, cardinals, and ribbons of all dyes, 

With ruffles stamped, and aprons of tambour ; 

Tippets and handkerchiefs at least three-score. 

Add feathers, furs, rich satins, and ducapes, 

And head-dresses in pyramidal shapes. 



152 AN INVENTORY. 

So weak Lamira, and her wants so few, 
Who can refuse ? They're but her sex's due. 
In youth, indeed, an antiquated page 
Taught us the threat 'nings of a Hebrew sage 
'Gainst wimples, mantles, curls, and crisping-pins ; 
But rank not these among our modern sins. 
Out minds and manners are well understood, 
To settle in a stomacher and hood." 

The poor ladies, as the inventory was 
read over, looked down at their dresses 
with dismay. Almost every article enu- 
merated they were wearing. 

Impressed, not offended, they left the 
presence of the noble matron, bearing 
her words in their minds, and it is to 
be hoped her influence in their hearts; 
for she gave not merely the precept of 
the lip, but the example of her life. 

Mrs. Washington had the moral cour- 
age to follow her own deep conviction in 
regard to dress and display, and in doing 
so she won the respect of all. 



BIBLE OUR GUIDE. 153 

And if the women of the church in 
this day will follow her example, and 
take the Bible for their guide, they will 
find that their usefulness will be greatly 
increased. They will have more time 
for Christ's work, more money for gener- 
ous enterprises, and more spiritual and 
physical strength to labor in the Master's 
vineyard. 



CHAPTER VI. 

TIME AND ABILITY FOR CHRIST'S WORK, 

T IFE may be woven with a double 
-*-^* thread; we may work for God 
while we earn our daily bread. 

There are opportunities on every 
hand ; and if the Spirit accompanies the 
effort, a great deal may be accomplished 
in a very little while. 

At home, in society, by the wayside ; 
wherever we go, we may work for the 
Master, while we perform the hard every- 
day duties of life. 

A word may save a soul. We do not 
know when to speak the word ; we can 
only go on speaking as we have oppor- 
tunity, and leave results with God. 
154 



THE SICK SOLDIER. 155 

An incident in my own experience, 
showing the power of a few sentences, 
may not be deemed amiss in this con- 
nection. 

In 1863, just after the fall of Vicks- 
burg, I visited the hospitals in Helena, 
Arkansas. 

Going into a large ward one day, filled 
with sick and wounded soldiers, I saw 
in the farthest corner of the room a 
very sick man. 

I noticed him the more, because he 
was looking towards me, and there was 
upon his face such a look of agony and 
despair as I had never seen on any 
human face before, and trust I may 
never see again. 

I said to the surgeon, who had stepped 
in with me : 

" You have one very sick man here." 
And when I designated him, he answered : 



156 THE LOOK OF AGONY. 

" Yes, he is almost gone — poor fellow, 
he'll not live long." 

I said no more — my heart was too 
deeply touched — but went directly to 
him. As I approached his cot-side I 
said tenderly, " You seem to be very sick, 
my friend." 

The look of agony deepened in his 
face as he answered: 

"My friend! I have no friend. I am 
here dying among strangers, and nobody 
cares whether I live or die." 

"Oh, don't say that. You have many 
friends in the North;" and I was going 
on to say, " I'll be your friend," but I re- 
membered how empty such a profession 
of friendship would be on the part of a 
stranger, and instead, I said : " There is 
a Friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother. Can't you make Jesus your 
friend in this dark hour?" 



JESUS THE SINNER'S FRIEND. 157 

When I spoke the name of Jesus he 
cried aloud : 

"Oh, would that Jesus were my friend; 
but I am a great sinner." 

" But Jesus is the sinner's friend." 

" lady ! You don't know what a 
wretched sinner I am, to what lengths 
of wickedness I've run, or you would 
not think that Jesus could save me." 

But I answered, "You don't know 
what a great Saviour we have, or you 
would not doubt. He is the mighty God, 
and is able to save to the uttermost ; and 
that means, that he can save you." 

"It is too late ! too late ! ! " he cried, 

with such bitterness of soul, that the 

men lying upon their cots — brave young 

men, who bore in their own persons the 

marks of their heroism — covered their 

faces with their bed-clothes and wept 

like little children. 
14 



158 THE VICTORY. 

But I urged, that it was not too late, 
and commenced telling him of the thief 
on the cross; but he stopped me. 

" Oh, I know about the thief on the 
cross ; but, lady, I am a thousand times 
worse than the thief on the cross." 

" If you were ten thousand times worse, 
Jesus could save you, for he can save to 
the uttermost." 

The words gave hope, and he ex- 
claimed, " Pray for me ! " 

I knelt by his cot-side, and while he 
cried, " God be merciful to me a sinner," 
I pleaded the precious promises. And 
while he prayed and I pleaded, " the 
opening heaven around us shone," — and 
the mighty power of saving grace 
came down upon his soul. 

The tempest was stilled, and all was 
peace. I looked up into his face to see, 
that in a moment — as it were, in the 



HEALED SOUL AND BODY. 159 

twinkling of an eye — all the lines of 
despair had been taken out of his face, 
and that it was beaming with joy — a joy 
unspeakable, and full of glory. 

If I had been an infidel up to that 
time, it seems to me that I should have 
been convicted of the truth of Christian- 
ity in that presence. 

There were many witnesses to this 
scene, and it was as though the Master 
would show his mighty saving power, 
for He healed that man soul and body. 

Three days from that time I found 
him on the shady side of the house read- 
ing the Testament I had given him the 
day before. The same look of peace 
and joy was in his face, as he said : 

" Oh, I am so happy this morning ! 
I have a furlough, and I am going home. 
How glad my Christian mother will be 
to know that I have found salvation." 



160 SPEAK THE NAME OF JESUS. 

" Young man/' I said, " wherever you 
go, remember, that you were snatched as 
a brand from the burning." 

" I can never forget that. My disease 
and despair were crushing me down. I 
must have died, if salvation had not 
come just then; but when you spoke the 
name of Jesus, I knew you were a 
Christian, and that you would help me 
if you could." 

If we would speak the name of Jesus 
oftener, sinners would hear and be at- 
tracted to the cross. 

What power, what magic in that word ! 

"He speaks, and listening to his voice, 
New life the dead receive." 

I dare not think what the result might 
have been, if I had not spoken the name 
of Jesus to this man. 

I tremble to think, that in the journey 
of life I may have passed by some des- 



THE PENITENT SINNER SAVED. 161 

pairing, perishing soul, without uttering 
that precious name. 

God can use the weakest instrumen- 
talities to save a repentant sinner. 

Not long ago two ladies in P were 

visiting from house to house. 

They entered a small tenement house, 
where they found a very sick man. 

He had lived a profane and godless 
life, but now, brought face to face with 
death, he was concerned about his soul. 
He would have been less than an im- 
mortal being, if he could have stepped 
out into the dark future, without any 
thing to step upon, and not have been 
concerned. 

When he learned that they were visit- 
ing in Christ's name, he said : 

" Prav, for me ! " 

Before kneeling to pray they sang : 

a There is a fountain filled with blood." 



162 SALVATION THROUGH A WALL. 

They sang it all through. They 
thought they were singing it for the 
sufferer beside them, and they were ; but 
they were singing it much more for a 
young girl, hopelessly ill, just beyond 
the board-wall that separated that from 
another poor back room. 

Alone, in her darkness and despair, 
she listened, and she heard the voice of 
Christian singing. And the blessed Holy 
Spirit, who can use even a song to bring 
a perishing soul to Christ, carried the 
second verse of that song through the 
board-wall, down into the depths of her 
troubled soul. 

She listened, and she heard the precious 
words : 

i The dying thief rejoiced to see, 
That fountain in his day ; 
And there may I, though vile as ho, 
Wash all my sins away." 



THE T0IL-W0KN MOTHER. 163 

The Christian visitors went their way, 
for they knew not of her presence ; but 
the words of the song remained — the 
blessed Holy Spirit lingered — and when 
they found her a few days afterwards, 
she was rejoicing in hope of immortality. 
Ultimately the man and his wife were 
brought to the knowledge of the truth, 
and the house was made vocal with the 
praises of God. 

The mother, toil-worn and weary, 
with her little ones around her, may feel 
that her opportunities are limited, and 
her work of little importance to the 
Master's cause. But if the love of Christ 
inspires her efforts, she may sow seed 
that will bring forth an abundant harvest. 

John Wesley, whose life and teachings 
have told so powerfully upon the des- 
tinies of the world, learned the lessons 
that made him strong and bold for the 



164 SUSANNAH WESLEY. 

truth from his mother. And Charles 
Wesley, when he sang : 

4 A charge to keep I have, 
A God to glorify," 

re-echoed in song the homely lesson of 
Christian duty he learned at his mother's 
knee. 

The work wrought in the humble 
home may bless thousands. 

Susannah Wesley toiled in such a 
home. At one time, when her husband 
was in prison, and she had but a few 
shillings in her pocket, and nine children 
to care for, she found time to gather in 
her neighbors and teach them the way of 
life. 

And the faithful mother, in the midst 
of her wearying toil, may find time, when 
her neighbors visit her, or when she goes 
into other homes, to speak of Christ and 
salvation. 



PECULIARLY CONSTITUTED. 165 

NO ABILITY. 

There are multitudes of women in 
the Church, who are ready to say : "I 
could find time for Christ's work, but 1 
have no ability — I am so peculiarly con- 
stituted that I never could talk on the 
subject of religion." 

This excuse, I am sorry to say, is not 
confined to the women of the Church. 
There are a great many very peculiarly 
constituted men in the Church. 

I have known men, who could plead a 
case at the bar, canvass a whole State, 
if need be, in the interests of a political 
favorite, make a Fourth of July oration, 
or do any thing in that line, but who 
were so peculiarly constituted that they 
could not speak or pray in a social re- 
ligious meeting. 

I have known women in the Church 



166 DUMB AS THE DEAD. 

who were the life of every social circle 
in which they moved, who prided them- 
selves on their conversational powers, 
and could stand by the hour, under a 
blazing chandelier, the centre of con- 
versational attraction for a whole room- 
ful, but who were so peculiarly consti- 
tuted that they could not utter a word 
of prayer at their own family altars, or 
speak to the poorest beggar about Jesus, 
and who at a social religious meeting 
were as dumb as the dead. 

Now dare we admit, that professors of 
religion may have ability for everything 
else, and no ability for Christ's work? 
Ten talents for the work of the world, not 
one talent for the Masters service? We 
dare not admit it, it is contrary to the 
teachings of the Word. 

They have taken upon themselves the 
vows of the Churchy it would not do to 



THE UNFAITHFUL MOTHER. 167 

say that they did not understand those 
vows. And understanding them, surely 
they have the ability to keep them. 

But our ability comes from God. Out 
of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh. 

If our hearts are filled with the 
love of Jesus, we will find some words 
in some language, 

"To tell to sinners round, 
What a dear Saviour we have found." 

When we say that we have no ability 
for Christ's work, we confess our own 
unfaithfulness. For if we had gone on 
in the Christian life, we should have 
grown in grace and in the knowledge of 
the truth, and become strong. 

A mother requested a friend of mine 
to pray for her husband, and her six 
sons, all out of Christ. 

In the conversation that followed, she 



168 a mother's opportunity. 

confessed that she had been a member 
of the Church for twenty-five years, but 
that she had never spoken to any one of 
them on the subject of religion ; and she 
explained the matter by saying that she 
was so peculiarly constituted that she 
could not talk on that subject. 

But why this desire for the prayers of 
others ? Her two oldest sons, now in 
business in Philadelphia, are on the 
downward track, and ruin and disgrace 
are impending. 

A mothers opportunity never comes hut 
once. 

The time was when she held those 
boys in her hands like wax, and might 
have written deeply upon their hearts 
the lessons of saving truth. But she 
was an unfaithful Christian, a worldly 
mother, and the opportunity passed by 
unimproved never to return again ; and 



AN IDLER FOR THIRTY YEARS. 169 

now her tears and entreaties are of no 
avail. 

During a recent revival of religion in 
one of the churches of P , two wo- 
men sat side by side, one an earnest 
active Christian, the other a formal 
professor. 

The altar was crowded with penitents, 
and the Spirit of God was moving the 
hearts of the people. Not far from them 
a young man, a friend of the latter, sat 
weeping. 

" You are acquainted with that young 
man, he seems to be deeply moved; 
speak to him, and invite him forward 
for prayers," said the earnest Christian 
to the other. 

"Oh, I cannot; I never did such a 

thing in my life ; I never could talk to 

any one on the subject of religion," was 

the reply. 
15 ' 



170 THE MASTER COMES SEEKING FRUIT. 

An earnest conversation followed, in 
which the delinquent professor acknow- 
ledged, that although she had been a 
member of the Church for thirty years, 
her voice had never been heard in prayer, 
or testimony, nor had she ever spoken to 
any one of her friends or neighbors on 
the great subject of their soul's salvation. 

What a humiliating confession ! What 
a solemn moment ! It was the Spirit's 
last appeal — the offering of the last little 
cross. For the Master came to her heart 
that very hour, seeking fruit; and finding 
none, he said to her, as he said to the 
barren fig-tree, " Henceforth let there be 
no more fruit." And she went down to 
her house with that fearful sentence 
ringing through her soul, and a crushing, 
blighting consciousness that she was 
"condemned already." 

She was almost immediately stricken 



THE SAD REVIEW. 171 



c 



down with paralysis ; and she now lies 
helpless upon her bed. She never has 
worked for Jesus, and she feels that she 
never will. 

And now, as she stands on the crum- 
bling verge of time, and empty-handed 
looks out into the dark future, there 
comes up before her, in panoramic view, 
all the glorious opportunities she has had 
for the Master's work, but which she has 
neglected and trifled away. 

In the bitterness of her spirit she cries 
out, as she turns from the vanities of the 
world which have so long enthralled her: 

"Oh, what a mockery my life has 
been — what a blight upon the Church — 
what a stumbling-block in the way of 
sinners ! Would that I could go back 
and live my life over again, how diffe- 
rently I would spend the precious hours. 
But it's too late ! too late ! " 



172 THE GUIDE-BOARD. 

It is a fearful thing to live in the 
Church thirty years in idleness — a fear- 
ful thing to stand an idler, in the way 
of sinners, one year. How many pre- 
cious souls may stumble over a dumb, 
idle professor of religion, in one short 
year! 

I was once travelling in the country, 
and we came to where the road divided. 
Just at the point where the roads diver- 
ged, there stood a tree, and on the body 
of the tree was a large guide-board. 

I looked to see what was written on 
the board, but there was not a word. 
Doubtless there had been information 
and directions for the weary, bewildered 
traveller; but the storms had beaten upon 
it, and the writing had not been retraced, 
and only a few faint traces of the words 
remained. 

I said to the Christian friend who ac- 



WE CANNOT LIVE TO OURSELVES. 173 

companied me, how much this reminds 
me of unfaithful members of the Church. 
The lines of truth have been written on 
their hearts, but the storms of life and 
the cares of the world have beaten upon 
them; the heavenly writing has not been 
retraced, and they stand in the Church 
dumb guides. Poor bewildered sinners 
see no heavenly directions in their lives, 
and stumble on to ruin and to death. 

WE CANNOT LIVE TO OURSELVES. 

Service is demanded by a universal law 
of nature. 

Even "the earth which drinketh in 

the rain that cometh oft upon it, and 

bringeth forth herbs meet for them by 

whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing 

from God; but that which beareth 

thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh 

unto cursing, whose end is to be burned." 
15* 



174 THE HEAVENLY LADDER. 

So we who are constantly receiving 
the blessings of heaven, and make no 
return to God and humanity, are in dan- 
ger of like condemnation. 

It is as though a ladder extended from 
earth to heaven, and the All Father 
reached down his mighty hand to us, to 
hold, and to help, and bade us reach 
down our hands to the struggling mul- 
titudes below us ; and as we lift them 
Godward and heavenward, we ourselves 
are drawn nearer, and still nearer, to 
the bosom of Infinite Love. 

But if we are disobedient to the heav- 
enly calling, the hand of the Helper un- 
clasps, and the voice of the Master is 
heard, saying : " Inasmuch as ye did it 
not unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye did it not unto me." 

One of the surest tests of discipleship, 
is our interest for the salvation of others. 



THE CONSTRAINING LOYE OF CHRIST. 175 

It could not be otherwise. The very 
nature of the relation which establishes 
intercommunication between the human 
and the Divine, secures sympathy and 
unity of heart and purpose. And when 
the Blessed Christ, who gave himself a 
ransom for sinners, touches our hearts 
with his mighty love, we will feel some 
of the wonderful compassion that moved 
him when he went about doing good. 

Princely honors, earthly pleasures and 
the glittering toys of wealth, will be as 
the small dust in the balance, when com- 
pared with the richer inheritance and 
higher joys of the Divine life. And 
constrained by the mighty controlling 
power of Jesus' love, we will gladly labor 
for the extension of his kingdom, and 
joyfully take up our cross and follow him. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CROSS-BEARING AND CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE. 

"TTTE may bear a heavy cross, a cross 
* ' that bows us to the very earth 
with its weight and crucifixion, and yet 
receive no power or life from it, because 
Jesus is not on it. 

There is an old legend, that " when the 
Empress Helena went to the Holy Land 
in search of the true cross, excavations 
and great researches were made, and at 
last three crosses were discovered ; . but 
how were they to decide which was the 
true cross ? 

" They approached a dead body and 

laid one cross after another upon it, and 
176 



LIFE FROM THE DEAD. 177 

when the cross of Jesus touched the cold 
form it at once sprang up in new life and 
vigor." 

I use this fable to illustrate a great 
spiritual truth. 

When the cross of Christ touches a 
dead soul it springs into new life ; and 
the presence of this spiritual life is the 
true test of our Christianity. 

Jesus said, " If any man will be my 
disciple, let him deny himself, and take 
up his cross and follow me." 

Surely the Master did not mean the 
rich crosses that glitter on high altars, 
and tower above lofty domes, or the 
crosses and pictures of crosses that crowd 
richly furnished dwellings, or the crosses 
worn as ornaments, alike by the rich and 
the poor. 

These bring no life to dead souls. Too 



178 THE TRUE CROSS. 

often they are meaningless symbols that 
mock heaven and mislead men. 

But there is a true cross, with a Christ 
upon it, that brings life and joy and 
gladness to dead souls. 

It is the cross of doing duty when it is 
hard to do duty ; of standing by the right, 
even unto the death if need be ; of follow- 
ing Jesus although he leads through 
fiery furnaces. 

It is the cross of yielding heart, and 
life, and will to him, and walking 
humbly and obediently in all his com- 
mandments ; patiently toiling on in the 
sphere of duty he assigns ; meekly and 
faithfully doing his will, and joyfully 
accepting trials because of love to him. 

There are many who claim that they 
are going around the cross. But they 
deceive themselves. No one ever yet 
went around the cross; the way is too 



SHAM CROSSES. 179 

narrow. If we would go forward, we 
must needs take up the cross and bear it. 

When we think we are going around 
it, we are going backward. We may 
come again, and again to the same cross 
or another, but refusing to bear it we go 
backward ; we go a little beaten round, 
but we do not go heavenward; heaven is 
by way of the cross. 

Ah, there are multitudes in the Church 
who load themselves down with sham 
crosses, who hang them in their ears and 
about their necks, but who refuse to bear 
the real cross of Christ with its self- 
denial and its crucifixions. 

What a mockery in the sight of heaven ! 

They sorrow and suffer and toil as do 
others, because it is a part of their life, 
that they may not get away from; but it 
is not sweet to suffer, or to labor, for 
Jesus is not on their crosses. 



180 A YOUNG DISCIPLE. 

They are clinging to useless, Christless 
crosses, that in the day of eternity will 
be like millstones about their necks, to 
sink them to the depths of the bottomless 

pit. 

True disciples find a great many little 
crosses in the way, which, taken up, bring 
life and joy to their own, and to other 
souls. 

At the close of an ordinary service on 
a Sabbath day, in one of our city 
churches, a young lady, a stranger, was 
received into Church fellowship. 

A Christian lady present, who was a 
cross-bearer, and whose heart was in an 
attitude to say, "Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do," saw in that little 
circumstance an opportunity to work for 
Jesus. 

Not one of the great congregation 
present thought worth while to stop and 



THE INFIDEL PARENTS. 181 

speak to the young disciple. She alone 
lingered to give her a Christian greeting. 

Before they separated, it was arranged 
that she should call on the young lady 
on the next Thursday afternoon at her 
own house. 

The promised visit was made, and 
after some conversation the young lady 
said : 

" I want you to see my mother, My 
father and mother are infidels, and are 
very much opposed to religion ; but we 
are strangers here, and I am sure she 
will be glad to meet you." 

So the mother was brought in and in- 
troduced. After further pleasant con- 
versation, the mother said : 

" I want you to see my husband. He 

is in his studio. I will have him come 

down." And soon the husband joined 

them. 

16 



182 THE EFFECTUAL PRAYER. 

The interview was very pleasant; but 
after a little while, the Christian lady 
felt that she ought to lift up a standard 
for Christ, and although the cross was 
very heavy, she said : 

" It's my habit to pray with the people 
I visit when it is acceptable." 

The gentleman's countenance fell at 
once, but he said politely : 

" Just as you please about that." 

The Christian lady and the young girl 
knelt by the sofa ; the father carried a 
chair to the remotest corner of the room 
and knelt there, the mother did not 
kneel at all. 

How the Lord does help those who 
undertake to bear his cross; the hand 
of the Helper is underneath it. 

While she prayed : 

" The heavens came down the earth to greet, 
And glory crowned the mercy seat." 



EARNEST CHRISTIANITY RESPECTED. 183 

The mighty power of the Spirit was 
felt upon all hearts, and when they arose 
from the prayer, they were all weeping. 
It was some time before a word was 
spoken. The man was the first to break 
the silence ; extending his hand to the 
Christian lady he said : 

"Til bid you good-day, madam — God 
bless you and your Church!" 

Ah ! sinners and infidels respect an 
earnest Christianity. 

Stepping out into the hall, he almost 
immediately returned to ask : 

" Can you not come and pray with us 
every week ? " 

She bowed assent. 

" Then come next Thursday afternoon," 
he said, and he hurried up stairs, with 
the tears raining over his face. 

The next Thursday afternoon she was 
again with that family, and now they 



184 THE ABUNDANT HARVEST. 

gathered about her, a loving little group, 
and they all prayed, and "this man 
cried, and the Lord heard him, and de- 
livered him out of all his troubles." 

Before another week had passed by, 
the father and mother were both conver- 
ted, and added to the Church. 

What glorious results from one little 
cross-bearing ! But this is not all. 

It was my privilege, a few months ago, 
to see a letter from this gentleman, who 
is now living in San Francisco, Cal. He 
wrote, that as soon as he had established 
himself in his own house, he opened a 
prayer-meeting in his parlors, and that 
the very first evening a precious soul 
was converted, and that almost every 
week since the Lord had honored the 
meetings by his presence and saving 
power. 

If we go forward bearing the little 



BARB ART HECK. 185 

crosses — doing the little duties that lie 
next to us — God will own and bless our 
efforts, and lead us on to greater work. 

I have sometimes thought that there 
are no little duties in the Christian life ; 
that every thing would appear great and 
grand, if viewed in all their connections 
with time and eternity. 

I suppose that Barbary Heck, the 
founder of American Methodism, thought 
she was doing a very little thing when 
she went with her bucket of lime and 
white-wash brush, to white-wash the 
first Methodist church built in America 
— a church made doubly precious to her 
by her own prayers and sacrifices. 

I know not how well she white-washed 
those narrow rough walls — it does not 
matter now. But it was not a little 
thing ; by that and other simple efforts 
she started a wave of influence that has 



186 WE CANNOT LABOR IN VAIN FOR GOD. 

spread from ocean to ocean, till every 
mountain and valley in this broad land 
is dotted with Methodist churches. 

She could not lift the curtain and look 
down through the ages, and see the 
glorious results that God would work out 
from these little beginnings. It was not 
necessary that she should. 

Nor is it necessary that we should see 
the results of our work. When we have 
done all that we can do, we may safely 
leave results with God. 

We cannot labor for the Master in 
vain. His blessing will be upon our 
efforts, and precious souls will be reach- 
ed and brought to the knowledge of the 
truth ; and the reflex influence of our 
work will come back upon our own 
hearts like a heavenly benediction. 

In our labors we must not limit the 
saving power of God to a few respect- 



SALVATION FOR ALL. 187 

able Church-going sinners, but go forth 
to all, with confidence that God can save 
to the uttermost. 

Christianity is a great human leveller; 
it knows no rich — no poor. There are 
none so rich that they do not need sal- 
vation, and none so poor, and low-fallen, 
and covered with the leprosy of sin, 
and the filth of society, that the arms 
of Divine Mercy may not reach down 
to the depths of their degradation, and 
lift them up, to be heirs of God and 
joint heirs with Christ. 

And a Christian woman may go, as it 
were, to the very mouth of the pit, and 
rescue precious souls as brands from the 
burning. 

There is no place so dark, and vile, 
this side of perdition, that a woman 
may not enter in the name of Jesus, and 
command a respectful hearing. 



188 THERE MAY BE A SPARK LEFT. 

I know this statement to be true in 
the experience of hundreds, and have 
tested it in my own work ; for I have 
been among all classes, in the palaces of 
the rich, and the hovels of the poor, in 
garrets, and cellars, and prisons, and 
almshouses, and drinking-saloons, and 
dens of infamy, and I have ever found 
that the most abandoned hushed their 
rioting in my presence. 

Many and many a time have I seen 
the tears stream over the faces of 
hardened men and women as they 
listened to a few simple words of truth, 
and measured back the long distance 
between themselves and the innocent 
days of their childhood. 

Over a Benevolent Institution in 
Europe, there is a picture representing 
a shivering child of poverty, kneeling on 
the hearth-stone over some dying embers. 



THE TREASURES WE ARE TO LAY UP. 1 89 

She is seeking warmth, and she says, 
"There maybe a spark left," and she 
blows upon them till a flame is kindled. 

We are to go forth in the same hopeful 
spirit. 

Degraded and lost to shame and all 
womanly instincts, as that poor fallen 
sister may appear, there may yet be a 
spark of the Divine nature left. 

Lost to honor and manhood, degraded 
and besotted as that brother may seem 
in the eyes of men, there may yet re- 
main a spark of the God-given nature, 
that the Spirit of Christ can kindle to a 
flame. 

And we must go down and stand be- 
side them, and make them feel the warm 
pulsations of our Christian love, and win 
them back to truth and purity. 

These are the treasures we are to lay 
up for ourselves in Heaven. 



190 A YOUNG GIRL REDEEMED. 

Not silver, or gold, or costly apparel, 
but souls redeemed from sin, to be stars 
in the crown of our rejoicing forever. 

A Christian lady in her walks among 
the poor and the fallen, found a young 
girl, in a wretched home of sin, hopelessly 
ill. 

Surrounded by degrading influences, in 
a home of drunkenness, profanity and 
squalid poverty, she was rapidly sink- 
ing down in hopeless despair. 

" Oh, death seems so near, and the 
grave so dark; there is nothing left for 
me now but a grave in the Potter's field 
and a dark uncertain future," she said, 
as the Christian woman took her by the 
hand, and kindly and lovingly talked to 
her of Jesus and immortality. 

Step by step she led her to Christ; 
and it pleased the Master to reveal him- 
self to her in a most wonderful manner, 



A WELCOME AT HEAVEN'S GATE. 191 

so that she who came to teach was her- 
self taught a deep lesson of truth. She 
triumphed over the fear of death— -the 
grave was illuminated, and life and im- 
mortality brought to light in the Gospel. 

The Christian lady became so much 
interested in her, that she said : 

"You shall not be buried in the 
Potter s field. I will buy you a grave, 
and you shall have a Christian burial." 

This seemed to be the last drop in her 
full cup of joy. 

The lady was permitted to be with 
her just at the last, and witness her 
triumph and hear her last words. And 
these were her last words : 

" Be sure of one thing, when you come 
home, there will be one to welcome you 
at the gate of the Beautiful City." 

What a heavenly treasure ! 

This Christian lady says, that now, 



192 GLORIOUS OPPORTUNITIES. 

when she thinks of Heaven, she always 
thinks of that young redeemed spirit 
awaiting her coming, and the sweet as- 
surance comes into her heart that the 
Master looking at her will say, " Inas- 
much as ye did it unto one of the least 
of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." 

What glorious opportunities all around 
us to win precious souls to Christ, and 
lay up for ourselves treasures in Hea- 
ven! 

But too often we tremble in the 
presence of sinners, and fear to speak 
the words of truth by which they may 
be saved. 

We forget that they are ready to 
perish, and that the Master has sent us 
to them on a mission of mercy. 

We forget the priceless worth of a soul, 
and the value of the religion we profess. 

I learned a lesson of the power and 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 193 

value of Christianity a few years ago, 
that I can never forget. 

In 1862, just after the terrible battle 
at Corinth, Miss., I visited the hospitals 
in that place. The havoc had been 
fearful on both sides, and the wounded 
of the two armies crowded every ward. 

Going into a hospital known as the 
College Building one day, and passing 
from cot to cot, I came to a young man 
who looked very pale, and I asked : 

" Are you sick, or wounded ?" 

He answered, " I am severely wounded;" 
and seeing the look of sympathy on my 
face, he went on to tell me all about it. 

It was a long, sad story, that I need 
not repeat all here. 

He had fallen in the front of the battle 

line, had been taken prisoner, and had 

lain out all the night long among the 

dead j but he said cheerfully: 
17 



194 THE WOUNDED SOLDIER. 

" When ' our boys' found me, they 
took me up tenderly and brought me 
here, and now I am doing well." 

But I felt that he was not doing well, 
that he was on the verge of the grave, 
and that I must speak to him of eternal 
things. 

He went on to tell me of his home, — 
of a mother and sister, and two little 
brothers in Benton Co., Iowa, and added : 

" When I get well enough, I hope 
they will give me a furlough, and let me 
go home." 

I said tenderly, " I hope you will get 
well ; but how will it be if you should 
not, are you ready to die?" 

I never can forget his answer ; it has 
been ringing through my soul all these 
years. 

It was as though he was transfigured 
before me there came into his face such 



I HAVE THE COMFORTER. 195 

light and joy as, laying his hand on his 
heart, he said : 

"I HAVE THE COMFORTER!" 

What volumes in that sentence ! I did 
not need to ask him, to what denomina- 
tion he belonged, or when, or where he 
had found this pearl of great price. It 
was enough for me to know that he had 
the Blessed Comforter, which Jesus prom- 
ised to his disciples. 

But he went on talking sweetly of 
Jesus and Heaven*, and the power of 
Christ to keep* 

"Religion," he said, "has kept me 
through all the temptations of camp life, 
and now I am ready to live, or to die. 
If the Master sees that it is best that I 
should go now, it will be as near Heaven 
from Corinth, as it would be from Iowa." 

It was evening time, and I went my 



196 WHERE HAVE YOU LAID HIM? 

way. The next morning I was early at 
that hospital, and first of all went to look 
after him, but I found his place vacant. 

I said to the ward master, " Where is 
the young man that was lying here by 
this post?" 

He answered, " He is dead." 

Oh, how his words went to my heart ! 

" Where have you laid him?" I asked. 

He led the way out into the back 
yard, and there, side by side, stood the 
seven cot bed-steads that held the seven 
dead men that had been carried out the 
night before. He pointed out his cot, 
and left me alone with the dead. 

The bed-spreads were drawn up over 
their faces, and that was all that was be- 
tween the dead faces and the sky. 

I drew down the bed-spread to look 
upon his face. I never can express the 
emotions of that moment. My heart 



CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH. 197 

was thrilled, for there upon the dead 
soldier's face was the very same look of 
joy and peace that was on his face when 
he said, " I have the Comforter/' and I 
knew that the Comforter had been with 
him to the last. 

I could not ascertain that any human 
eye looked upon him in the last struggle, 
or that any human hand had soothed him 
in his agony ; but I knew that Jesus had 
sustained him — that the Comforter had 
been with him till the last. 

I wrote to his mother, telling her the 
sad story of his sufferings, and the sweet, 
sweet story of his Christian triumph. 
After awhile an answer came back to 
me. She did not know that he was 
wounded or dead, until she received my 
letter. His death was a heavy blow, 
but she rose in Christian triumph above 



198 THE DIVINE STAMP ON CLAT. 

her great sorrow, and in closing her 
letter said : 

" My son may not come back to me, 
but I shall go to him ; and it is just as 
near Heaven from Iowa, as it was from 
Corinth ; and the same Comforter that 
comforted my son when wounded and 
dying among strangers, comforts me now" 

What a glorious Christianity we have ! 
A religion that can keep, under the 
sorest trials, that can comfort in the 
deepest agonies, and that can give joy 
and peace in the presence of Death, and 
leave its Divine stamp upon the dead clay. 

WHAT A PRICELESS HERITAGE, 

The women of the nineteenth century, 
rejoicing as they do in the light of Chris- 
tian civilization, will do well to remember 
that this priceless heritage was bought at 
a fearful cost of life and effort, and was 



A PRICELESS HERITAGE. 199 

baptized in its infancy with the tears and 
blood of women. 

It is a precious legacy, too precious 
to barter back to Rome; too costly to 
waste in idle, or useless living. 

The privilege of reading God's Word, 
and attending the house of prayer, so 
lightly esteemed by many professing 
Christians in this age, cost the women 
of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies agony and suffering too deep for 
human words. 

Thus it has been, and ever will be, 
when innocent blood flows for the re- 
ligion of Jesus, women suffer most, and 
their prayers, and tears, and hearts' 
richest treasures mingle in the purple 
current. 

How zealously then should we guard 
this rich heritage of religious liberty; 
how earnestly and faithfully labor to 



200 ARE WE NOT DAUGHTERS OF A KING? 

build up the temple of truth, and spread 
Scriptural holiness over this land, and 
all lands ; that peace and love may abide, 
and the sword be forever turned away 
from our own hearts, and become to the 
husbandman a useful implement of toil. 

Are we not daughters of a King, with 
an eternal kingdom just before us, and 
crowns of glory almost within our reach ? 
What have we to do with the trifles and 
vanities of this life ? 

Let us not spend our time as do others, 
and waste our substance in useless dis- 
play, and riotous living, but give our- 
selves unreservedly to Christ and his 
work. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TRACT DISTRIBUTION — WOMEN'S WORK IN 

HEATHEN LANDS DRUNKENNESS AMONG 

WOMEN. 

~\ yTUCH has been said and written 
-*^-^- about the distribution of tracts ; 
but the Church is slowly learning the 
truth, that these leaves of healing must 
be accompanied by human sympathy, 
and applied by the hand of Christian 
love, to be effectual. 

The indiscriminate distribution of 
tracts is rather to be deplored than com- 
mended. They may be scattered broad- 
cast, till they fall as thickly as the leaves 
of autumn, with little or no result. 

201 



202 PERSONAL EFFORT WITH TRACTS. 

Here and there one may fall on a pre- 
pared heart, bringing a message that is 
suitable and helpful; but millions of 
pages will fall as dead leaves to be trod- 
den under feet of men, unless they are 
attended with personal religious effort. 

Tracts have their place and mission ; 
but they cannot take the place and do 
the work of a disciple. 

When Jesus said, "Go out quickly 
into the streets and lanes of the city, 
and bring in hither the poor and the 
halt and the blind. Go into the high- 
ways and hedges and compel them to 
come in that my house may be filled," 
he meant something more than the giv- 
ing of a paper, or the leaving of a tract 
at the door. 

He meant that we should go in person 
to the perishing multitudes around us, 
with our hearts all aglow with Divine 



WE MUST GO OURSELVES. 203 

love, and the glad tidings of salvation on 
our lips, to be " living epistles, known 
and read of all men." 

He meant that we should come down 
to their circumstances, and sympathize 
with their distresses; that we should 
bring to them a present experience of 
the Christ-life within us, and stand be- 
side them and make them feel the warm 
pulsations of a love that is without 
dissimulation, and has no respect for 
persons. 

He meant that we should rejoice with 
those who rejoice, and weep with those 
who weep ; and that we should warn, 
and persuade, and entreat with all ten- 
derness and longsuffering, " to flee from 
the wrath to come." 

Human needs must be known to be 
properly met; and those who offer tracts 
and nothing more, when religious con- 



204 THE CAUSE BROUGHT INTO CONTEMPT. 

versation is possible, sacrifice golden op- 
portunities to blind uncertain chance. 

The times demand the presence of the 
best talent, and the purest faith of the 
Church, in the homes of the people, a 
demand that cannot be met by the in- 
discriminate distribution of tracts. And 
those who undertake this work, and lack 
the moral courage and spiritual power 
to do it in a proper manner ; who leave 
a tract at the door, as is too often the 
case, and skulk away without knowing 
the religious condition and wants of the 
people they are trying to reach, will fail 
to meet the pressing demands of the age; 
but they will not fail to degrade this 
service, and bring reproach upon the 
cause of Christ by these exhibitions of 
cowardice, and lack of faith. 

A friend of mine, an earnest Christian 
minister, had a tract thrust under his 



woman's work in heathen lands. 205 

door, entitled "An Appeal to a Drunkard." 
Another gentleman, whom I know, had 
a tract handed to him on " The Higher 
Christian Life." He knew nothing of the 
lower Christian life — he knew vastly 
more about theatres and bar-rooms. 

The religion of Christ is brought into 
contempt by such bungling, half-hearted 
work. 

But earnest, self-sacrificing Christians, 
who will go forth boldly to labor in the 
Master's vineyard, will find the fields 
white unto the harvest, and may gather 
many golden sheaves. 



woman's work in heathen lands. 



Great as the demand is for work in 
this land, our plans and efforts must 
not be limited to the Home Field. 

The work at home must be done, but 

it is the privilege and duty of the women 

18 



206 DEGRADATION OF HEATHEN WOMEN. 

of the Church to extend the refining, 
elevating influences of the Gospel to the 
ends of the earth. 

We stand here at the radiating centre 
of Christian civilization, exalted and 
crowned by a religion of purity and love. 
But just over there, our sisters are crush- 
ed to the very earth by the barbarism 
of a false religion — a religion that knows 
no purity, no love, no mercy, that 
tramples down every holy instinct, and 
degrades women to the level of brute 
beasts. 

We, in our comfortable homes; breath- 
ing an atmosphere of love; moving 
freely in society, the object of attention 
and respect ; Surrounded by friends, and 
books, and pictures; with opportunities 
for study and culture ; can hardly under- 
stand, or fathom the depth of their de- 
gradation. 



THE WOMEN OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. 207 

They are enslaved soul and body, and 
are the objects of contempt and derision, 
and the victims of the grossest super- 
stitions. 

We owe all the blessings we enjoy to 
Christianity; and sympathy and gratitude 
alike should lead us to extend those 
blessings to others. 

It is said that when Caesar return- 
ed after the conquest of Britain, he 
gave it as his opinion, that the people 
were so degraded and worthless that 
they were not fit for slaves. Afterwards, 
a Christian, seeing some fair-faced flaxen- 
haired girls from the British Isles for 
sale in the slave-market, inquired who 
they were. Being told that they were 
Angles, he answered, give them Chris- 
tianity, and they will be Angels. 

There was hope and prophecy in his 
words. To-day the fair-faced women 



208 WOMEN MAT GO. 

who speak the English language are, 
more than any others, the angels of 
man's spiritual destiny, and the hope of 
the women of heathen lands. 

And we must go down and stand be- 
side them, and undo their heavy burdens, 
and break their galling chains, and lift 
them up to a noble Christian womanhood. 

No message of mercy sent by the 
hands of men can reach them. 

Their feet have been made fast in the 
stocks of an inner prison; every soul 
window has been closed; every door has 
been barred, and they sit in the region 
and shadow of death, and no man, but 
their own keepers and the priests who 
have forged their chains, may come near 
them. 

But we may go. God has providen- 
tially opened all these doors to us, and 
has written in letters of living light over 



A WELCOME TO CHRISTIAN WOMEN. 209 

every archway : "A welcome to Christian 
women ! " 

Heretofore we have sent men, and 
they have preached to men, and the 
women have sat desolate and alone in 
their habitations of cruelty, and have 
not heard a word of these blessed truths. 

But Christian women may go into 
these desolate homes, and illuminate 
their darkness, and make their shame 
and degradation to pass away by the 
glorious lessons of Gospel light and lib- 
erty. 

And surely there is no higher mission 
than woman s work for woman. It cer- 
tainly is, at home or abroad, in a pecu- 
liar sense their duty and privilege to 
labor for their fallen sisters. 

And for this great work, which seems 
now committed to women, we have abun- 
dant resources if they were consecrated. 



210 CONSECRATION OF MONEY. 

If the money that is being squandered 
by the women of the Church in extra- 
vagancies and useless ornaments, were 
given to send the Gospel to the women 
of heathen lands, a flood of light would 
be poured into the habitations of cru- 
elty, and salvation would flow to the 
ends of the earth. 

If the women of the Church had a 
living, God-honoring faith, and would, as 
faithful stewards of the mainfold gifts 
of God, consecrate themselves and their 
means to this great work, they might 
look over the broad lands, filled with 
idols, and covered with gross darkness, 
and count the millions of women who sit 
in the region and shadow of death and 
claim them all for Christ. 

But while we earnestly and faithfully 
labor to extend the Gospel to the women 
of heathen lands, we must not relax our 



DRUNKENNESS AMONG WOMEN. 211 

efforts in the Home Field. And one of 
the most gigantic evils that confront us 
at home is Intemperance. 

DRUNKENNESS AMONG WOMEN. 

There is no more alarming sign of the 
times than the increase of drunkenness 
among the women of the higher classes. 

It is fearful enough to see men bloated 
and besotted with wine and strong drink, 
but drunkenness in women unsettles the 
very foundations of society. 

It may be no greater sin for a woman 
to drink than a man, but it certainly w 
a greater social calamity. 

We may not however conceal the fact, 
that drunkenness among women of all 
classes is greatly on the increase, and 
especially among the rich, and that there 
is not only wine upon the side-board and 
brandy in the secret drawer, but public 



212 DRINKING RESORTS FOR WOMEN. 

places of resort where women go to drink. 
Kestaurants, whose chief attraction is 
" the wine list." 

Fine carriages and servants in livery 
may be seen in attendance at the door, 
while the rustle of silks keeps time with 
the clinking of glasses. 

It is really shocking to see with what 
a toper-like air some young ladies can 
handle their straws. 

These places are made as pleasant and 
attractive as possible, and afford a de- 
lightful retreat for a social glass. 

Women do not drink as men do. 
Men guzzle, or turn down a glass at one 
gulp. Women sit down by little tables, 
and sip, and gossip by the half hour. But 
the effect is ultimately the same. 

There are thousands of women to-day 
among the higher classes, who are more 
or less under the influence of liquor 



DRUNKEN MOTHERS. 213 

every afternoon, or who occasionally 
take a sp^ee. 

I have seen women elegantly dressed, 
living in palatial residences, who were so 
drunk that they could not get out of their 
carriage without the aid of a foot-man. 

And I have very often seen women in 
street and railway cars so much under 
the influence of liquor, that they could 
not give an intelligent answer to the 
simplest question — mothers with little 
children, who could not be trusted with 
them in their arms, by the father, or the 
servants in attendance. 

From physicians, who are frequently 
called in as advisers in the more des- 
perate cases, I have ascertained many 
facts in regard to the prevalence of this 
evil. 

But it is not necessary to enter further 
into these wretched details. 



214 PATENT MEDICINES. 

Is it not time that the women of the 
Church would wake up to these alarming 
facts, and ash why this increase of 
drunkenness among women, and what 
they can do to stay the terrible tide ? 

Doubtless there are several causes. 
The free use of liquors in the family is a 
prolific source. From babyhood to old 
age, they dose with liquors of some kind, 
for every little ailment. 

Notwithstanding all eminent men 
have said and written to the contrary, 
the masses believe that there is medical 
virtue in this stimulant. 

But much of the increase of drunken- 
ness among women, I believe, may be 
traced to the free use of Patent Medicines. 

Most of these compounds are liquors, 
variously drugged. 

Taken month after month, an appetite 



THEY KILL INSTEAD OF CURE. 215 

for stimulants is created, and something 
stronger is required. 

From what I have been able to gather 
I am persuaded, that more persons are 
made drunkards by their use than are 
cured of disease* 

The whole country is flooded with 
these compounds. They may be found 
in every drug store, and in almost every 
dwelling. 

Analyzed they are usually found to be 
whiskey and some simple drugs. 

There are some kinds of these medi* 
cines that men understand the nature of 
very well, and as it is much more re- 
spectable to buy medicine than whiskey, 
they keep themselves well supplied. 

It is most reasonable to suppose that, 
as these medicines are largely used by 
women, they too would acquire an appe- 
tite for strong drink. 



216 DUTY OF CHRISTIAN WOMEN. 

Now it seems to me that the duty of 
the women of the Church is very clear 
in regard to this whole question. 

They must not only banish liquors 
from their houses, but patent medicines 
from their closets, and bring their whole 
influence to bear against every form of 
this evil. 

There are many women in the Church 
who love these things more than they 
would like to confess ; and are sub- 
stituting "homemade-wines/' and other 
drinks, and thus tampering with the 
serpent, 

God is dealing severely with some of 
them. Their sons and daughters have 
gone beyond the occasional glass, and the 
homemade wine, and have been wrecked 
and ruined. 

Surely Christian women, who have the 
Spirit of Christy cannot look out upon 



DRUNKARDS ON A DEAD MARCH. 217 

the suffering, and poverty and crime 
which flow as an immediate result from 
this cause, and allow intoxicating liquors, 
or anything that will create an appetite 
for them, in their houses. 

Surely they cannot look out upon 60,- 
000 drunkards on a dead march, followed 
by nearly 300,000 women and children 
clothed in rags, beggared and ruined soul 
and body, and feel indifferent ! 

Dare any woman of the Church, in the 
presence of these terrible facts, put the 
cup to her lips, or tolerate it in her 
house, or keep silence when 60,000 men 
are being murdered annually and laid 
in drunkards' graves, and while women 
weep, broken-hearted, and children cry 
for bread ? 

It was a murderer who said, " Am I 
my brother's keeper?" 

Ah ! there are many saying those very 

19 



218 SAVE THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 

words to-day, as they look into wine- 
rooms, and drinking-saloons, where men 
and women are slain. 

Who shall paint the confusion of that 
hour — the blackness of the despair that 
shall cover the unfaithful, when the 
Master demands these souls at their 
hands ? 

If this gigantic evil is ever checked 
and cured, the women of the Church must 
engage heartily in the work, in their own 
and other homes. 

We must go to work at the founda- 
tions of society, must reach the women 
and the children. 

We have been spending our energies, 
on old confirmed drunkards, while " quack 
doctors" and whiskey dealers were en- 
trapping new victims. 

We must go to the fountain-head of 
society, and save the women and the 



GO FORTH TO LABOR. 219 

children from their power, and when the 
old dealer and drunkards all die off, we 
may hope for enough moral sentiment to 
sustain wholesome legislation. 

Though last in the catalogue of work 
for Jesus presented in these pages, I 
feel that it is not least ; that there is a 
great mission for the women of the 
Church in the Temperance cause. 

And now, in reviewing, let us remem- 
ber that we cannot live to ourselves, 
that there is a work for each one of us to 
do, that we must do, or it will be an un- 
finished work forever; that there are 
souls to save, that we must save, or they 
will go down to death, and their blood 
will be upon our garments. 

Life is short, and death is at hand. 
Let us not sleep as do others, but put on 
His strength and righteousness, and go 



220 EXTEND THE TRUTH. 

forth to overthrow Satan's kingdom, and 
extend the knowledge of the truth as it 
is in Christ : to whom with the Father 
and the Spirit be glory now and forever. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRIS- 
TIAN WORKERS 

T I THE great question to be settled first 
- 1 - of all, is, that we will deny our- 
selves, and take up our cross and follow 
Jesus; that whatsoever our hands find 
to do, we will do with our might. 

And when this question is settled, and 
there is a strong abiding purpose to per- 
form Christian duty, under all circum- 
stances, there will be no lack of oppor- 
tunities ; God will recognize our fidelity, 
and give us our proper place in his vine- 
yard. 

It is said of Elizabeth Fry, the Chris- 

19* 221 



222 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 

tian Philanthropist, that her daily morn- 
ing prayer was, "Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do, this day?" And the 
Master led her forth to his work; and 
prison doors that had been barred through 
all the ages of the past against the minis- 
tries of Christian women, opened before 
her, never more to be closed, and Gospel 
light streamed into dungeon cells, and 
made luminous the dark places of the 
earth. 

Florence Nightingale, in a letter to a 
friend,* says, "If I could give you in- 
formation of my life, it would be to show 
how a woman of very ordinary ability 
has been led by God, by strange and un- 
accustomed paths, to do in his service 
what he has done in her. And if I 
could tell you all, you would see how 
God has done all, and I nothing. I have 

*Bev. Lemuel Moss, D.D. 



PERFECT OBEDIENCE. 223 

worked hard, very hard, that is all, and 
I have never refused God anything" 

Ah ! there lies the secret of her won- 
derful success. She never refused God 
anything. He commanded, and she 
obeyed ; he led, and she followed. And 
the doors of military hospitals reeking 
with human gore, that had been closed 
against the kindly ministries of women 
through all the bloody years of the world's 
history, suddenly opened before her — 
opened never more to be closed till the 
fulfilment of the gracious promise, " And 
nation shall not lift up a sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any 
more." 

But there are many in the Church who 
have never settled this question — who 
have no abiding purpose to labor for 
Christ and humanity, and who may not 
be depended upon for any Christian work. 



224 QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED. 

They take up the cross to-day, and 
refuse it to-morrow. They follow the 
Master to-day, and deny him, and follow 
their own desires to-morrow. They will 
accept no work, unless it is easy and 
agreeable, and in harmony with their 
own views and plans. 

They cannot be trusted with any great 
enterprise ; the Master may not rely on 
such co-laborers for the salvation of a 
world. If they save their own souls, it 
will be "as by fire." 

And whatever other qualifications we 
may possess, our success in Christian 
work will depend mainly on our nearness 
to Jesus, and the strength of our purpose 
to perform every duty, no matter when, or 
where presented. 

Nearness to Christ will bring all our 
plans into harmony with the Divine will, 
and fill us with the constraining love 



IMITATING JESUS. 225 

needed for aggressive service ; and a set- 
tled purpose will hold us steadily to our 
work. And when, with heart and life 
and purpose, in harmony with God's 
plan for the salvation of sinners, we 
go forth to labor, we may hope for 
success. ♦ 

But it is important that we meet those 
we would benefit, on an equality ; not 
looking up to the rich, or down upon the 
poor, but imitating Jesus, who bore him- 
self with dignity in the presence of the 
rich and great and self-sufficient, and 
came down with the tenderest sympathy 
to the poor and the lowly. 

Multitudes are perishing all around us 
for lack of human sympathy. 

On a Monday morning, not many 
months ago, a Christian lady sat at her 
sewing-machine, busy with her work; 
but her thoughts were on other things. 



226 PATH OF DUTY MADE PLAIN. 

" Faith without works is dead/' she 
repeated. It was the text of a sermon 
to which she had listened the day before, 
and as she sat there thinking, her heart 
was troubled because of her unfaithful- 
ness. 

"But what can I do?" she queried. 
The spirit suggested, "You might have 
spoken to Mr. B — , when you bought 
Carrie's shoes on Saturday — it is not too 
late yet." 

Her thoughts were turned into another 
channel. She had known and traded 
with Mr. B — , for nearly three years, and 
had never said a word to him about the 
interests of his soul. Would she be wil- 
ling to meet him at the judgment, with 
such a record of unfaithfulness against 
her? The thought startled her; she 
could take no such risk, and she left her 
work and went directly to his store. 



THE SAD CONFESSION. 227 

Providentially he was alone, and ad- 
dressing him she said : 

"Mr. B — , I have been thinking of you 
this morning, and I am troubled over my 
unfaithfulness. I have known you for 
nearly three years, and have never spoken 
to you on the subject of religion ; and I 
have come to talk with you now, for I 
would not be willing to meet you at the 
bar of God, without giving you a faith- 
ful testimony on that subject." 

While she spoke, he seemed deeply 
affected, and when he could control his 
emotions to answer her, he said : 

" Mrs. C — , you little know what I was 
thinking of when you came in : 2" had 
made up my mind to take my own life, 
and I was trying to decide whether to use 
poison, or blow out my brains with a pistol. 
But when you announced your mission, 
I knew that God had sent you to me? 



228 VISIT TO A DRINKING-SALOON. 

Earnest conversation and prayer fol- 
lowed, and he was led to abandon his 
evil design, and turn his thoughts and 
prayers to God for salvation. 

But for the timely words of this Chris- 
tian lady, who obeyed the suggestions 
of the Spirit, he might have rushed 
madly into eternity, as hundreds are 
doing annually. 

We are to watch for souls as those 
who shall give an account, and while 
they are yet a great way off, meet them 
and help them to Christ. For we may 
go in the name of Jesus to the very 
mouth of the pit, and rescue precious 
souls as brands from the burning. 

A few months ago, two ladies visiting 

from house to house, in one of our 

eastern cities, went into a large corner 

drinking-saloon, and certainly such a 

place is very near the mouth of the pit. 



THE CARD PLAYERS. 229 

They found about twenty young men 
lounging about the room. One, with 
pale and haggard face, stood before the 
counter, just ready to receive a glass of 
liquor, that the bar-keeper was pouring 
out for him. But as soon as the ladies 
entered he stepped away from the bar, as 
though he did not want them to know 
that the glass of liquor was intended for 
him. 

Mrs. D — , in a few kindly Christian 
words, expressed her interest in his 
welfare, and invited him to attend 
church. The same kindly invitation 
was extended to each one. 

In the back part of the room there 
was a card-table, and four or five young 
men were seated around it playing cards ; 
but as the ladies approached, the table was 
swept in a moment, and there was not a 
card to be seen. 

20 



230 DANGEROUS COMPANIONS. 

They were ashamed to be caught with 
cards in their hands. A good lesson to 
many worldly professors of religion, who 
encourage card-playing in their families, 
and bring them forward unblushingly 
for the entertainment of company. 

Tracts were offered and accepted very 
cordially by all. 

"I hope you will read them," said 
Mrs. D— . 

"Certainly we will," was the hearty 
response. 

" I think it will be better employment 
than the business you are engaged in. 
Cards are dangerous companions." 

" Oh, we were not playing for money, 
but just to put in the time — we've 
nothing else to do." 

"Nothing to do in this great busy 
world so full of work ? Then would it 
not be well for you to spend this precious 



RESCUED FROM THE MOUTH OF THE PIT. 231 

time in reading, and self culture, in some 
one of our free libraries ? " 

And after further Christian counsel 
she invited them to attend church, and 
the ladies took their leave. 

They went up the street a little dis- 
tance, but returning almost immediately 
they glanced in as they passed by the 
half open door ; the glass of liquor still 
stood on the counter untouched, and the 
men were all reading their tracts. 

Three days afterwards, in answer to 
the bell, Mrs. D — met a young man in 
her parlor. 

" Yes, you are the very woman who 
visited the drinking-saloon," he said, 
excitedly. And when he could com- 
mand his feelings to do so, he went on to 
tell her, that himself and two other 
young men left the saloon immediately 
after her visit. 



232 PRAYER ANSWERED. 

As night came on, they sought the 
church to which she had invited them, 
but it was closed, and they wandered on 
down another street. They had not gone 
far till they heard the voice of Christian 
singing, and following the throng gather- 
ing for worship they entered a church. 
Holy influences were about them, all the 
circumstances invited them to a better 
and purer life, and when the invitation 
was given they presented themselves as 
subjects of prayer, 

For three days they had been seeking 
salvation, without realizing pardon and 
peace. Sin burdened and heavy hearted 
they said, " If we could find those ladies 
who visited the drinking-saloon, we 
know that they have faith and that God 
would hear their prayers." And they 
went forth to seek them, and their steps 
were Divinely directed. 



THE MODERN GOSPEL. 233 

When on the evening of the third 
day, these two saintly women bowed 
with them at the mercy seat, their faith 
was so strengthened that they were able 
to claim Christ as their Saviour and to 
rejoice in his pardoning love. 

But I desire more particularly just 
now to call attention to the importance 
of religious work in the homes of the 
people, and especially among the masses 
unreached by the Church. 

The rich and the poor are alike in 
need of the Gospel of Christ. Chris- 
tianity is a great human leveller, and re- 
cognizes no social distinctions ; and our 
efforts should not be limited to any one 
class. I do not believe in the modern 
gospel of " a loaf of bread in one hand 
and a tract in the other." 

Bread and tracts should be given 
when needed, but they will not meet the 

20* 



234 A LOAFER INSTRUCTED. 

wants of the perishing multitudes around 
us. There are but very few in any com- 
munity who need bread, and many of 
those if they could be reached by the 
gospel, would give up idle and expensive 
habits and provide bread for themselves ; 
but the great mass of the people are in 
need of the gospel — are perishing for 
the lack of the Bread of Life. 

A religious paper and an invitation to 
church were handed to a man loafing 
about a drinking-saloon, one day by a 
Christian visitor. 

" I will take these/' he said, " but I 
would rather you would give me some 
green-backs." 

"Silver and gold have I none, but 
such as I have I give unto you," 
answered the lady. 

" But these will not buy bread, or pay 
my rent? 



RELIGION PUT ON ITS OWN MERITS. 235 

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God, 
and his righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." 

"That sounds very well, but it will 
not help me, I fear." 

" According to your faith, be it unto 
you. Now go thy way, and think on 
these things." 

Three or four months afterwards, a 
gentleman arose in the prayer-meeting 
to testify to the power of Divine grace, 
and he related this incident as the turn- 
ing point in his life. 

" And when I sought and found salva- 
tion," he said, " I gave up my evil com- 
panions and expensive habits and applied 
myself to business, and now I can pay 
my own rent, and have bread enough and 
to spare" 

The lady was present to hear the 
testimony and receive the grateful thanks 



236 HALF-HEARTED WORKERS. 

of the stranger, and to wish him God 
speed on the heavenly journey. 

Christianity should be put upon its 
own merits; the poor should never be 
tempted, or bribed with bread and 
clothing to a hypocritical profession of 
friendliness to religion that they do not 
feel. Such a course does them a positive 
damage, for the help we give is only 
temporary, and spiritually they are made 
worse instead of better. The Church 
can do little for any one if she cannot 
reach the heart and change the life. 

The secret of the great success of the 
missions in England, known as " The 
Missing Link," lies, I believe, in the fact 
that the people are met on their level, 
and Christianity put on its own merits. 

But there are a great many women in 
the Church who would rather make a 
garment than make a prayer ^ and would 



THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 237 

rather give a loaf of bread than to speak 
of Jesus the Saviour of sinners. 

They are willing to work for the 
poor, and give money to send the Gospel 
to heathen lands, but they are not will- 
ing to give the Bread of Life to the hea- 
then perishing at their own doors. 

But if we would be successful workers, 
toe must go into the homes of the people — 
meet them on their own level — talk with 
them on the subject of religion, as we 
would talk on other subjects — gain their 
confidence — show them Jesus in our words 
and lives, and make them feel that we 
have a heart experience of priceless worthy 
to which they may attain. 

And when we have satisfied them that 
our interest is real, and that " our love 
is without dissimulation," we will be in 
a position to lead them to Christ. 

But we must go to all. There is no 



238 AN INCONSISTENCY. 

greater inconsistency in the Church, than 
the general practice of passing by Ro- 
manists, Infidels and false religionists. 

We send our missionaries to heathen 
lands, where the chief authorities are 
opposed to the spread of Christianity ; to 
a people who speak in unknown tongues, 
and are separated from us by casts and 
prejudices, and are hedged in by the ac- 
cumulated superstitions of ages, and are 
under the control of an ignorant and cor- 
rupt priesthood, who wield almost un- 
limited power, and expect that success 
will follow their efforts. 

But we turn away hopelessly from the 
people near our own doors, who speak 
our language, and can read our books, 
and are less under the control of priests 
and false teachers, and leave them to 
live and die in their errors and sins. 
There could be no greater inconsistency. 



AN UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT. 239 

Patient, loving, persevering efforts among 
the classes named above would yield 
more glorious results, than are being 
achieved by the same slow methods in 
foreign lands. 

For plans of work, see p. 55. 

We must have the spirit of the Master 
to do the Master's work. We cannot 
lead others nearer to Jesus than we go 
ourselves. Our power will be in propor- 
tion to our knowledge of "the deep 
things of God." For we cannot testify 
to the things of which we are ignorant, 
and if we would witness a good confes- 
sion, we must have a present, living, per- 
sonal experience. And the best argu- 
ment that ever has been, or can be made, 
in favor of Christianity, is a personal 
testimony of its truths. We know on 
whom we have believed. And a clear 
consciousness of this, will give us holy 



240 CONCLUSION. 

boldness to speak to any one, for " the 
righteous are bold as a lion." 

The world is to be redeemed from sin, 
and it is our privilege, as co-laborers with 
the Lord Jesus, to take part in the glori- 
ous work. 

And when the workers of all lands 
shall shout home the harvest of the 
world, if we have wrought faithfully, we 
too may join the glad acclaim and hear 
the welcome applaudit, " Well done, good 
and faithful servant; thou hast been 
faithful over a few things, I will make 
thee ruler over many things ; enter thou 

into the joy of thy Lord/' 

Amen. 

THE END. 



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